Louis Vuitton Beats Molly Tea in China, Triggers Cultural Backlash

A Chinese court ordered bubble tea chain Molly Tea to pay Louis Vuitton 10.3 million yuan (£1.1m; $1.5m) on June 29 for using a four-petal flower logo the court ruled too close to the French house’s iconic monogram. The Shenzhen-based tea company said it plans to appeal. Louis Vuitton declined to comment. The ruling has detonated online, with hundreds of millions of views on Chinese platforms and a heated argument about who actually owns the four-petal motif.

The damages break into 10 million yuan for economic losses and 300,000 yuan to cover Louis Vuitton’s legal expenses. The court also ordered Molly Tea to stop using the logo and publish a corrective statement across six official channels. Louis Vuitton filed the original civil case in May 2025 with the Suzhou Intermediate People’s Court, the South China Morning Post reported, citing Chinese corporate records site Tianyancha. The 10.3 million yuan award now sits inside a hashtag storm that has crossed 360 million views on Weibo, the Straits Times reported.

The Suzhou Court, and What the Ruling Says

The court that issued the order sits just east of Shanghai. The Suzhou Intermediate People’s Court, in China’s eastern Jiangsu province, ruled on June 29. The civil case was filed on May 15 last year, the South China Morning Post reported, citing corporate records site Tianyancha. The court found that Molly Tea and a franchise store in Suzhou’s Wuzhong district had infringed seven of Louis Vuitton’s registered four-petal flower graphic trademarks.

The largest pieces of the damages figure explain the headline total. The court awarded 10 million yuan in economic losses plus 300,000 yuan to cover Louis Vuitton’s reasonable litigation expenses, totaling 10.3 million yuan. Different outlets translated the verdict differently: the BBC put it at about £1.1m, the South China Morning Post at $1.5m, and the Straits Times at about S$1.96m. Louis Vuitton, which filed the suit through its legal entity Louis Vuitton Malletier, declined to comment on the result.

The judge did not stop at damages. The court ordered Molly Tea to cease using the disputed logo and publish a corrective statement on the homepages of its six official channels: its website, its mini-program, and accounts on Weibo, WeChat, RedNote, and Douyin. The brand has already moved; it updated the logo on its mini-program after the ruling, switching from a black-and-white version to a colored one. The Shenzhen-based chain was founded in 2021 and now operates more than 2,000 stores in China and more than 50 overseas locations.

Why Louis Vuitton Prevailed in Court

The legal win rests on a principle the Chinese IP system hands to whoever registers first. Chinese Trademark Law follows a first-to-file rule: when two parties apply for similar marks covering similar goods, the earlier filer wins. Kang Lixia, a partner at Beijing Standzer IP Firm, told the Straits Times that Louis Vuitton had registered its four-petal flower designs in China well before Molly Tea tried to file its own flower marks starting in March 2024. Most of those Molly Tea applications were rejected; only the one containing the Chinese characters for “Molly Tea” was registered.

Although Molly Tea and Louis Vuitton are registered in different classes, LV’s status as an earlier-registered and highly recognised mark entitles it to cross-class protection under the law. This means its rights can, in some cases, extend to unrelated product categories, creating a challenge for later applicants.

Kang Lixia is a partner at Beijing Standzer IP Firm and made those comments to the Straits Times to explain why the cross-class protection argument meant the case did not require a customer to be confused inside a tea shop. LV’s earlier registration and global recognition extended trademark rights into unrelated product categories. Liu Bin, an IP lawyer at Beijing Zhongwen Law Firm, drew a separate line the court accepted: protection for figurative marks does not require identity with a registered mark, only consumer confusion. Liu added that traditional cultural elements should “remain open and be carried forward,” while commercial marks must not mimic earlier registered brands. With both the cross-class principle and the confusion standard on the court’s side, Molly Tea’s appeal has a high bar to clear.

The Public Took the Other Side

Public reaction has been loud and largely against Louis Vuitton. A hashtag tied to the case drew more than 360 million views on Weibo, the Straits Times reported, with a second thread crossing 18.7 million reads. The BBC put the broader discussion above 400 million views, with tens of thousands of comments.

Defenders of the tea chain pointed to designs that predate the modern trademark system by centuries. Commenters compared the disputed four-petal motif to patterns that have appeared in Chinese bronze ware, in garden lattices, and in Tang dynasty textile ornaments. A Weibo commenter captured the public mood in a single line: “Give me a break. They’re just taking advantage of the fact that our ancestors didn’t file for patents.” The argument frames the suit less as a fashion dispute than a contest over who gets to claim a visual vocabulary that was common ground before any fashion house existed. Some voices did side with the ruling; a Weibo user argued that backers of the Molly Tea design should “study law first.”

The pattern turns up in Tang dynasty textiles, people pointed out, centuries before there was a house called Vuitton to register anything with.

Gogo Wang’s July 3 post on the verdict brought the Tang textile comparison to an English-language audience. Their post began: “Woke up this morning to see Louis Vuitton just won a trademark case in China against a local buble tea chain, about $1.5 million, over a four petal flower that looked too much like the monogram.” Wang noted that the Chinese internet sided with the tea chain over the motif’s heritage. One line kept getting reposted across the discussion in Mandarin: LV你身后空无一人, roughly “LV, there is no one standing behind you.”

English-language posts echoed the same pushback with shorter lines. “LV greed knew no bound,” one user wrote; another called the case “a bit of a stretch” given that Louis Vuitton and Molly Tea work in different categories. The hashtag keeps growing.

What Molly Tea Must Do Now

The court order triggered a tight set of obligations for the chain. Molly Tea must stop using the disputed four-petal flower emblem across its branding. It must also publish a corrective statement on six official platforms: its website, mini-program, and accounts on Weibo, WeChat, RedNote, and Douyin. The brand updated the logo on its mini-program after the ruling, switching from a black-and-white version to a colored one, the South China Morning Post reported. The chain confirmed through Chinese media that it will appeal to a higher court.

1. Cease using the disputed four-petal flower logo across branded materials.
2. Publish corrective statements on six official channels (website, mini-program, Weibo, WeChat, RedNote, Douyin).
3. Pay the damages within ten days of the ruling.
4. File an appeal with a higher Chinese court.

A successful appeal would need to clear both the cross-class standard that won the first round and a fresh look at whether Molly Tea’s floral mark is distinctive enough to merit protection. Kang told the Straits Times that an appeal’s success largely depends on whether the appellant can produce sufficient evidence that its design is original and distinctive. The chain, founded in Shenzhen in 2021, runs more than 2,000 stores in China and more than 50 overseas locations.

A Parallel Case is Moving in Maryland

The Suzhou ruling is not the only active front in the brand’s enforcement campaign. On June 1, 2026, Louis Vuitton Malletier filed a federal trademark complaint against Live! Casino in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, accusing Live! Casino & Hotel in Anne Arundel County and The Cordish Companies Inc. of producing and distributing a “luxury bag collection” that copied LV’s Monogram Design and its three Flower Design trademarks. Per the federal complaint, the casino’s Art of Luxury campaign used mail and online advertising in April 2026 to invite patrons to collect a giveaway bag. Louis Vuitton is seeking up to $2 million per counterfeit mark per type of good. The casino dispute has not yet produced a verdict; the case sits at the pleading stage.

The two cases share the same playbook. Both rely on LV’s registered Monogram Design and Flower Design trademarks. Both target defendants in industries unrelated to high-end leather goods. Both build on LV’s earlier registration of the marks to clear out later entrants in unrelated product categories.

The Maryland filing puts a number on what the brand says its mark is worth per unit of infringement. Louis Vuitton is seeking up to $2 million per counterfeit mark per type of good, a per-unit claim that can multiply across product categories. The Suzhou damages were set for economic losses and legal expenses, totaling 10.3 million yuan, which translations put at $1.5 million per the South China Morning Post and BBC. The Suzhou decision is now under appeal; the Maryland case sits in federal court awaiting its own resolution.

Who Gets to Own a Four-Petal Flower

The Suzhou court applied the Chinese Trademark Law as written. The Chinese public is asking a separate question the court did not address: who owns a visual motif older than the IP system built to protect it. The four-petal flower that anchors LV’s case in Suzhou has its modern echo in older Chinese decorative patterns; defenders of the tea chain argue those patterns predate the trademark itself.

Liu Bin, an IP lawyer at Beijing Zhongwen Law Firm, framed the tension for the Straits Times: traditional cultural elements should “remain open and be carried forward,” while commercial marks must not confuse the market. The four-petal flower now sits inside both statements, a motif with deep Chinese roots that the brand has registered as a private asset. Some commenters called the registration outright theft, accusing the brand of taking “China’s ancient traditional patterns,” then “registering” them as trademarks, then “using them to file lawsuits in return.” Other commenters replied that registration, not ancestry, is what IP law protects. Patagonia’s recent dollar-claim trademark suit against climate-activist Pattie Gonia sits on the same fault line, where a brand’s registration meets an individual contesting it. Molly Tea confirmed it will appeal to a higher court; the Maryland casino dispute continues in federal court.

Disclaimer: This article reports on a pending trademark case as of publication. The Suzhou verdict has been appealed, and the U.S. case has not yet reached a judgment. Readers seeking guidance on trademark or intellectual property matters should consult a qualified legal professional. Figures cited are accurate as of July 7, 2026.