Imax corporation, which maintains some 150 theaters in China, is facing competition from cheaper rivals in the country who provide similar solutions, according to The New York Times. Indeed, the technology Imax's Chinese competitors use is so similar that the company alleged a former employee, Gary Tsui, also known as Xiaoyu Cui, took the company's trade secrets and other intellectual property in order to or provide engineering support to Chinese rivals. While Tsui denies that this is true, cases are ongoing in the U.S., Canada and China that involve Imax and Tsui. A court in Ontario issued an injunction that ordered Tsui to cease competition with Imax pending trial, and later ordered him detained for noncompliance, though he has remained both free and outside of Canada.

The disputes between Imax and Chinese competitors over intellectual property are made more complicated by the structure of the Chinese film industry. The companies connected to the cases are China Film Giant Screen and Beijing Cubic Pictures Technology. Both are overseen by the China Film Group, a state-run organization that controls China's film imports. The organization denies any intellectual property infringement on the part of the companies in question, though Imax and representatives from the China Film Group continue to have conversations on the matter, according to The New York Times.