VITURE, a Chinese AR glasses brand focused primarily on overseas markets, has been barred from selling its VITURE Pro model in Germany after a court found it infringed a European patent held by rival XREAL, according to an overseas distributor familiar with the matter.
The Munich Regional Court I has issued a first-instance ruling granting a preliminary injunction, ordering VITURE’s Hong Kong distributor, Eden Future HK Limited, to immediately stop offering, marketing, using or importing the VITURE Pro in Germany, the distributor said. The decision marks one of the first instances in the extended reality (XR) industry in which a core technology patent dispute has resulted in an actual sales ban.
In a brief response, the company said consumers could still purchase its products via its official website or Amazon, adding that its products “should not be banned from Germany.”
However, searches on Amazon’s German website showed no listings for the VITURE Pro. While VITURE’s official Amazon storefront remains active, it currently sells only products from its VITURE Luma series. The distributor said the VITURE Pro had also been taken down from Amazon marketplaces in at least nine European Union countries, including France, Italy and Spain.
XREAL, another Chinese AR glasses maker that also ranks among the world’s top five brands by sales, confirmed it had initiated the legal action. According to publicly available court filings and company statements, XREAL accused VITURE in September of infringing its European patent EP3754409B1, which covers an augmented reality device and its optical system.
XREAL subsequently sought a preliminary injunction in Germany against both Viture Inc. and Eden Future HK Limited, which operates VITURE’s Amazon Europe store. In hearings held in mid-November, the Munich court considered two cases: XREAL versus Viture Inc., and XREAL versus Eden Future HK Limited.
The court ruled that the VITURE Pro infringed XREAL’s patent and found Eden Future HK Limited, as distributor of the product, to have clearly committed infringement. As a result, it prohibited the company from selling, marketing, importing or possessing the VITURE Pro in Germany.
VITURE was founded in 2021 by Konglue Jiang, a Harvard University Graduate School of Design alumnus specialising in human-computer interaction. Jiang has previously worked at Microsoft Research Asia, the MIT Media Lab and Google X, and helped build the AR glasses team for Rokid in Silicon Valley.
The company has positioned overseas markets as its primary growth driver. In September, VITURE completed two additional Series B funding rounds totalling $100 million. Jiang has previously said the company’s products sell particularly well in the United States, Japan and Germany.
Market research firms estimate that Chinese brands occupy four of the top five positions globally in AR glasses sales, reflecting their dominance in hardware manufacturing and rapid iteration cycles. Western Europe has become one of the fastest-growing regions, with shipments in the third quarter rising more than 100% from a year earlier, according to industry data.
Against that backdrop, the loss of access to Germany – Europe’s largest economy and a key technology market – could complicate VITURE’s expansion plans. The VITURE Pro, launched last year, is considered one of the company’s higher-volume products, making the ban potentially more damaging than restrictions on niche or experimental models.
The dispute also highlights intensifying competition among Chinese AR players overseas. While companies often compete aggressively on price and features in the domestic market, international expansion brings them into contact with more mature patent enforcement systems, particularly in Europe and the United States.
Industry analysts say patent litigation is likely to become more common as AR hardware moves closer to mass adoption and product designs converge around similar optical and display solutions.
“The overseas market is a completely different game,” said one industry executive, who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of ongoing litigation. “Without a strong global patent strategy, even leading brands risk being blocked from key markets.”
For Chinese AR makers, the case serves as a warning that global success depends not only on technology and scale, but also on navigating complex intellectual property regimes. As competition intensifies and growth shifts increasingly overseas, building defensible patent portfolios may prove as critical as product innovation itself.
