Patrick Harrington was trained by Mr. Choudhury and previously owned a Bikram studio in the Denver area. But after several years, he opened a new studio where he has not taught the Bikram sequence, in part because of fears of a lawsuit. “In yoga, it’s important that we hold ourselves to a higher standard,” Mr. Harrington said. “We’re not in competition with other yoga studios down the street.” Referring to Mr. Choudhury, he added, “I think he was being advised by lawyers after the fact that he could be losing money.”

Mr. Choudhury’s studio, Bikram Yoga College of India, did not respond to a request for an interview, and his lawyers declined to comment. But longtime Bikram instructors said that it was the unaffiliated studios and teachers “stealing” and modifying the Bikram sequence who were motivated by greed.

Jim Kallett, the director of Bikram’s Yoga College of India, San Diego, a Bikram franchisee, said that shorter, 60-minute classes, which some market as “Bikram express,” were dangerous, because he said the body did not have time to warm up properly. “Bikram created this sequence, and the whole idea was it was so simplified and safe, anyone could do it, and really, anyone could teach it,” Mr. Kallett said. “Now, you see people getting hurt left and right, because people are not teaching it right. They don’t want to change it for the benefit of the people who are doing it — they are doing it to make money.”

Over the last decade, a number of studio owners have settled out of court with Mr. Choudhury to avoid a prolonged legal battle. But Mark Drost, another former Bikram devotee who left to found a company in 2008, said he was committed to continuing to use the Bikram sequence in his own way. When Mr. Choudhury sued, he refused to settle.

“We wanted to establish that you can’t own sequences, Mr. Drost, a founder of Evolation Yoga, said. “Traditionally, you take a teacher’s training and move forward with it.”