Xreal Inc., a Chinese pioneer in smart glasses, is suing Viture Inc. for patent infringement in the US, arguing its rival has unfairly capitalized on Xreal’s extensive research and investment in the segment.

The lawsuit, filed Thursday in federal court in eastern Texas, accuses San Francisco-founded Viture of unlawfully incorporating Xreal’s patented inventions into smart glasses such as the Luma Pro, Luma Ultra, and a high-end pair called The Beast.

Both Xreal and Viture manufacture augmented reality, or AR, glasses that plug into devices like smartphones and laptops, offering viewers a large virtual display for watching movies or handling productivity tasks. Technical specifications like display resolution and field of view- the size of the augmented world you can see at any given time- are often very similar between the two brands. 

Their US legal battle comes ahead of what is expected to be a pivotal moment for the segment, with Apple Inc. expected to make its category debut as soon as this year, Bloomberg has reported.

Xreal holds over 800 patent and patent applications worldwide, including dozens in the US and Europe, it said in a statement Thursday announcing the lawsuit. “By comparison, Viture owns approximately or fewer than 70 patent and patent applications globally, with none in the United States or Europe,” it added. 

“The lawsuit is not merely about enforcing a single patent,” Xreal said in the statement. “It is about stopping a pattern of intellectual property infringement that undermines the integrity of innovation and endangers continued technological development in this industry.”

Xreal holds more global market share than Viture in the AR eyewear category, according to research firm IDC. But both companies lag far behind Meta Platforms Inc., which has come the closest to mainstream success with its Ray-Ban line of smart glasses.

At the CES technology trade show earlier this month, Xreal unveiled a new entry-level pair of glasses and a co-branded set of glasses developed with Taiwan’s Asustek Computer Inc. It also announced that it’s extending a partnership with Alphabet Inc.’s Google.

Xreal said in the statement that these and other collaborators are “owed confidence that their co-developed products will not also be threatened by infringers attempting to benefit from infringement or undermined by unauthorized usage of IP.”