A Chinese court just ordered a milk-tea chain to pay Louis Vuitton about 10 million RMB. A bag maker versus a bubble-tea seller — different industries entirely. So how is this infringement?

That question is exactly why the case matters.

The facts: Molity (茉莉奶白), a tea-drink brand with ~2,347 stores across China, used a four-petal flower on its storefronts, cups, packaging and online avatars — closely resembling the quatrefoil in LV's classic monogram. On 2 July 2026 the Suzhou Intermediate People's Court found the company had infringed seven of LV's figurative "four-petal flower" registered marks, and awarded 10 million RMB in losses plus 300,000 in enforcement costs.

Three things drove the outcome:

  1. Well-known mark cross-class protection. Trademark rights normally bind only within similar goods. But under Article 13(3) of China's Trademark Law, copying a well-known registered mark even on dissimilar goods is prohibited where it misleads the public and may harm the mark owner. LV's flower is a recognized well-known mark, so the "different industry" defense fails.
  2. Damages above the statutory cap. China's statutory-damages ceiling is 5 million RMB. The 10 million loss award — double that ceiling — signals the court calculated infringer profits from massive commercial scale, not a rule-of-thumb figure.
  3. Bad faith. The chain had repeatedly applied to register the same flower mark since 2024, and was rejected each time before this judgment — then used it nationwide anyway. Knowing prior-rights conflict plus mass use presumes willfulness and pushes damages up.

The real lesson for anyone building a brand — especially cross-border: do the clearance search and register across the classes you actually need before you scale. Chinese courts protect foreign well-known marks this firmly; foreign courts protect brands the same way. Riding on someone else's famous element, once done at scale, is a high-risk bet everywhere.

What "different industries" looked like a shield here turned out to be no shield at all.

#TrademarkLaw #IPProtection #CrossBorder #BrandProtection #ChinaLaw

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Mike Wu, China-licensed Attorney · Cross-border practice
4 languages (CN/EN/ES/JA)
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