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Suzhou court orders Molly Tea to pay Louis Vuitton 10.3 million yuan
The ruling found the tea chain’s four-petal floral design infringed Louis Vuitton’s registered trademarks, according to SCMP Economy.
In early July, a Suzhou court ordered Chinese tea chain Molly Tea to pay Louis Vuitton 10.3 million yuan, about US$1.5 million, after ruling that Molly Tea’s four-petal floral pattern infringed on the French luxury house’s registered trademarks, SCMP Economy reported.
The dispute sparked online backlash, with users circulating images of similar four-petal motifs they said appear in Tang dynasty (618 to 907) textiles, musical instruments, and Suzhou garden architecture, arguing the design tradition predates Louis Vuitton’s 1854 founding.
SCMP Economy cited an intellectual property lawyer, Wang Jia, who said trademark law is meant to protect a mark’s role as an indicator of commercial origin, built through long-term brand recognition, not to grant the company control over every four-petalled floral motif.
Wang added that while motifs shaped through collective creativity are part of shared artistic heritage, elements in the public domain may be used by anyone, and she argued against an interpretation that traditional motifs are treated as universally “freely available.”