Louis Vuitton Prevails in Trademark Dispute With Chinese Firm, Reshaping China’s IP Landscape Amid Western Corporate Pushback

Louis Vuitton Wins Trademark Infringement Case Against China’s Molly Tea
Legal Disputes Mount Between Western and Chinese Brands Over Alleged Trademark Theft
China Shifts Its Response as Investment Concerns Meet the Rise of Domestic Industry

Louis Vuitton, the flagship brand of French luxury conglomerate LVMH, has prevailed in a trademark infringement suit against emerging Chinese beverage chain Molly Tea. China’s approach to trademark protection, once widely seen as unfavorable to foreign brands, appears to be shifting amid pushback from foreign companies, trade pressure and a growing need to strengthen intellectual-property protection. Other overseas companies are likewise stepping up efforts to protect their rights, filing a series of lawsuits over Chinese firms’ registrations of lookalike trademarks and imitation practices.

Louis Vuitton Prevails Against Molly Tea

According to a July 26 report by Nikkei, the Suzhou Intermediate People’s Court ruled at first instance last month that Molly Tea had infringed Louis Vuitton’s brand rights by using a four-petaled flower-shaped logo resembling the luxury house’s Monogram Flower motif on its cups and packaging. The court found that the Molly Tea logo was highly similar to Louis Vuitton’s mark in its intersecting lines, curvature and structural arrangement, creating a sufficient risk that consumers could mistakenly believe the two companies had entered into an official commercial partnership or collaboration. The court said Molly Tea’s infringement demonstrated “substantial bad faith,” citing the fact that the company had repeatedly had trademark applications rejected by the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) since 2022 due to design similarities and other concerns.

The first-instance ruling ordered Molly Tea to pay Louis Vuitton approximately $1.63 million in damages. Molly Tea has appealed, arguing that Louis Vuitton’s Monogram Flower resembles a four-petaled motif widely used in traditional Chinese ornamentation and that the company merely reinterpreted the traditional design in a modern form. Louis Vuitton, meanwhile, maintains that the Monogram Flower was independently developed in the late 19th century as an anti-counterfeiting measure and has acquired a distinctive “secondary meaning” through continued investment and use.

Louis Vuitton’s Trademark Defense Campaign

This is not the first time Louis Vuitton has pursued legal action in China to protect its trademarks. The company has challenged 151 trademark applications filed with the CNIPA that resembled its Monogram Flower motif, securing a success rate of about 83%. It has also aggressively tracked the production, distribution and overseas shipment of counterfeit goods through customs enforcement and civil litigation. In one example, the Tianjin No. 3 Intermediate People’s Court ruled in favor of Louis Vuitton in 2023 in a case involving Chinese trading company Chongqing Maolüxin, which exported large quantities of products bearing marks resembling Louis Vuitton’s “LV” motif. The court determined that the mark was highly likely to cause confusion with Louis Vuitton’s well-known trademark and ordered damages of roughly $18,800. It notably viewed the defendant’s refusal to disclose its business partners and distribution channels, even after Tianjin Port Customs had found infringement, as evidence of strong willfulness.

More recently, litigation has expanded beyond Chinese companies seeking trademark registrations to include the Chinese government agency that reviewed them. According to reports by Chinese state-run English-language outlet Global Times and others, LVMH subsidiary Louis Vuitton Malletier held a hearing on July 16 at the Beijing Intellectual Property Court in an administrative trademark lawsuit against the CNIPA. The dispute concerns a four-petaled graphic trademark application filed by Huang Minyao, who operates an apparel business in Shantou, Guangdong Province. Louis Vuitton sought to block registration through administrative procedures, arguing that the mark was confusingly similar to its Monogram Flower motif. After the CNIPA declined to accept that claim, the company filed suit seeking to overturn the decision.

Intense Courtroom Battles Continue

Louis Vuitton is far from alone in facing trademark infringement by Chinese companies. U.S. luxury jewelry brand Tiffany & Co., for instance, is currently locked in a trademark dispute with Chinese sanitary-pad brand Alffany. Tiffany has sought cancellation of the brand’s trademark registration, arguing that its name resembles Tiffany’s Chinese name. Alffany has countered that its name derives from the pronunciation of the Chinese phrase “aihu ni,” meaning “to cherish and protect you,” rather than being designed to evoke Tiffany. Tiffany had previously raised a similar objection to an “Alffany” trademark application filed by a Shanghai company in 2017, and authorities ultimately recognized the similarity and invalidated the registration.

Related disputes have also continued to generate friction in the United States. According to the “2024 Survey of Overseas Intellectual Property Disputes Involving Chinese Enterprises,” published last year by the China Intellectual Property Research Association, 1,227 new intellectual-property lawsuits were filed against Chinese companies in the United States during 2024. The total included 587 patent suits, 668 trademark suits and 16 trade-secret suits. The number of Chinese companies named as defendants reached 1,707 in patent cases, 10,865 in trademark cases and 19 in trade-secret cases. Average damages in patent litigation amounted to $2.803 million, while average damages in trademark litigation stood at $251,000.

Chinese Judiciary Eases Its “Domestic-First” Approach

Western companies have begun responding more aggressively to intellectual-property infringement as Chinese courts’ approach to trademark disputes changes. China has traditionally adhered to a first-to-file system, which prioritizes the rights of the party that files a trademark application first. This framework encouraged so-called trademark squatting, in which local companies or individuals registered the English names, Chinese names or logos of well-known foreign brands in advance, then blocked the original brands from entering the market or demanded substantial transfer fees. Chinese courts and regulators frequently dismissed claims by the original rights holders on the grounds that domestic recognition or prior use in China had not been sufficiently demonstrated. French luxury brand Hermès lost a 2012 lawsuit seeking to recover the Chinese trademark “Aimas,” which had been registered first by a Chinese company. U.S. sportswear brand New Balance was instead ordered to pay substantial damages for using a similar Chinese-language trademark that had been preemptively registered by a local operator. British shoemaker Manolo Blahnik was also unable to recover its trademark for more than two decades after a Chinese business registered the founder’s name first.

This stance, however, has shown signs of change in recent years. China revised its Trademark Law in 2019 to allow authorities to reject applications filed in bad faith without an intent to use them, while also raising the cap on punitive damages for trademark infringement. The revised standards placed broader weight on factors including the applicant’s intent, the overseas brand’s recognition and repeated imitation. Since then, China’s Supreme People’s Court invalidated in 2022 the trademark held by the Chinese business that had preemptively registered Manolo Blahnik’s name, while New Balance has won a series of cases against local companies that imitated its logo.

Risks Stemming From Intellectual-Property Disputes

Foreign corporate pushback and concerns over weakening investment have been central to this shift. Among overseas companies operating in China, the perception is spreading rapidly that expanding operations in the country carries the risk of trademark and technology leakage. This trend has not only encouraged the departure of foreign companies and capital but has also intensified trade pressure from Western governments. During the U.S.-China trade dispute in 2018, the Office of the United States Trade Representative identified China’s intellectual-property infringement, forced technology transfers and unfair licensing practices as core issues in its Section 301 investigation, subsequently using those findings to impose sweeping tariffs on Chinese imports.

Changes in China’s domestic industrial structure have also helped drive institutional reform. In the past, most Chinese companies benefited from loose intellectual-property protections. Yet as Chinese companies such as Huawei, Xiaomi, BYD and Tencent have accumulated their own patents, software assets and global brands, their interests have shifted. Without adequate protection for trademarks and patents, Chinese companies themselves could become victims of imitation and technology leakage at home and abroad. China’s institutional changes, therefore, amount both to a defensive measure aimed at reducing foreign corporate departures and trade friction and to an industrial strategy designed to safeguard the technology and brand value of domestic companies.