Visual China.
Text |Zinc Finance, Author |Pengyue Sun, edGale.I couldn't read it, but I was blown away.
Just recently, the Weibo topic Thailand Luckin claimed 10 billion baht (2 billion yuan) from China's Luckin on the hot search, and both the audience and the person involved Luckin issued the same sigh.
Regarding the theft of the Thai copycat version of Luckin's trademark, Luckin has been fighting with it for nearly three years, but I didn't expect the other party to become more and more courageous, not only in the Thai court defeat, but even the Thai copycat version of Luckin actually beat a rake and came to the genuine claim.
However, the parent company behind the Thai copycat version of Luckin suddenly sighed that the victim was not only Luckin.
The parent company behind the Thai copycat version of Luckin is a group company called "Royal Thai 50R".
Netizens who know a little about the domestic situation in Thailand must feel that things are not good:Could it be that behind this cottage Luckin is the "well-known Thai Internet celebrity" Rama X?
Thailand is a constitutional monarchy with the largest power of the king, with a wealth of up to 43 billion US dollars, one of the richest royal families in the world, and a monopoly of more than 50% of Thailand's industrial chain. The affairs of its current king, Rama X, and many wives, as well as the palace infighting that can be called a modern version of "The Legend of Zhen Huan", have always been the gossip of entertainment marketing.
But behind the Thai copycat version of Luckin, there is no Thai royal platform, and even the name "royalty" is just a fox and a fake tiger. According to Red Star News, the word Thai royal (royal family royal) is open for registration at the Thai Department of Commerce, and any business can register.
Royal Thai 50R is actually a "Sino-Thai joint venture" company, according to the Thai Ministry of Commerce DBD information, the legal person of Royal Thai 50R is Thai, the equity structure includes both Thai and Chinese, and the shareholders of the two companies overlap.
These shareholders with Chinese backgrounds did not stage an exotic version of the drama of "fellow villagers see fellow countrymen, tears in their eyes", but "fellow villagers see fellow countrymen, and a shot comes in the back".
It is understood that the Royal Thai 50R company has a large number of "copycat brands", from SF, Hive Nest, J&T, Chow Sang Sang, Chow Tai Fook;to Luckin, Mixue Bingcheng, Nai Xue's tea, Nongfu Spring, Nongfu Orchard;Even they have registered the trademarks of well-known Internet celebrities such as Wei Ya and Li Ziqi.
It can be said that it is readily available, from the company's brand to the Internet celebrity, all of them have been copycated. According to the statistics of Jin Cuodao, a total of 191 Chinese trademarks under the name of Royal Thai 50R Company have been tragically poisoned by copycats.
A brand registered by the Royal Thai 50R company.
Essentially, Royal Thai 50R is similar to the cybersquatting of ** domain names more than a decade ago, but narrowing down the global scope to Thailand. When these well-known brands begin to implement their overseas plans, they will jump out and knock on the brand side to sell the registered trademark.
Among these copycat brands, Luckin is the best one to be operated.
As early as three years ago, Luckin Coffee was mired in financial fraud for 8 months, and had no time to take care of anything else. The Thai copycat version of Luckin quietly opened its first store in Bangkok.
All its operating logic is no different from the genuine Luckin, all of which take the low-cost coffee route, and at the same time play the emotional card against overseas Chinese and Chinese, and discount them when they meet Chinese.
For a time, with the help of Luckin's mature business model and the word-of-mouth fame, the Thai copycat version of Luckin Mix became popular.
As early as 2021, Luckin has sued the Royal Thai 50R Company, Thai intellectual property rights and international courts** information shows that China's Luckin Coffee has sued two Thai companies for trademark issues in 2021, and Luckin has asked for it to revoke its trademark registration and stop using these trademarks.
Luckin Coffee's official Weibo also issued an announcement in 2022, making it clear that Luckin Coffee did not open a store in Thailand, and Luckin Coffee in Thailand are all counterfeit stores. Please pay attention to the identification of friends living in Thailand and beware of being deceived.
This seemingly conclusive and very simple infringement litigation case ended up with twists and turns.
On November 24, 2022, the Thai court announced the first-instance judgment in favor of China Luckin. On March 24, 2023, the Royal Thai 50R Company filed an appeal. This time, something strange happened, and in early December 2023, China Luckin lost the second trial.
On December 19, 2023, the Royal Thai 50R Company sued Luckin in turn, claiming that Luckin had damaged its business reputation and delayed its listing process, and that Luckin had borne all of the losses totaling 9 billion bahtSecondly, after the preliminary trial, Luckin forcibly seized the property in the store, for which 50R Group demanded compensation99.5 billion baht;Finally, as a result of Luckin's allegations, the 5 million baht that 50R hired for its lawyers and legal advisers should also be paid by Luckin.
It's really Li Ghost vs. Li Kui, 300 rounds without winning or losing, this wave of dazzling and high-end "commercial operations" makes people incomprehensible.
Real and fake Luckin coffee.
Why is it that such an obvious and pixel-level plagiarized name, plagiarized appearance, and plagiarized logo were rejected by the Thai court?The reason is that there is no trademark cooperation agreement between China and Thailand, and whether it is plagiarized depends on the detailed registration time in Thailand.
In other words, the time of registration in China has long been useless, and according to the provisions of the Thai Trademark Law, Thailand Luckin is the first to apply for registration with the local trademark office and use it, and it has the right to use this trademark to engage in business related to this field in Thailand.
Royal Thai 50R claimed that it had used the names and logos of Luckin Coffee as early as 2019, and that everything was handled in accordance with the rules and procedures of Thai law, and that it was allowed to use the trademark to operate a coffee shop business that sells tea and coffee and other beverages.
The "rogue business" of the Royal Thai 50R Company, under the protection of Thai law, makes Luckin unspeakable.
It is worth mentioning that Luckin is not the first case of several years of litigation due to overseas trademark squatting.
As early as 2019, the well-known Internet celebrity tea drink brand Chayan Yuese had Korean students preemptively register the "Chayan Yuese" trademark in Seoul and opened a copycat version of Chayan Yuese store in Seoul.
The international students suspected of overseas trademark squatting were not ashamed but proud, and said on social ** that they were from Changsha, and that the Korean trademark squatting was legally legal, and they did not think about harming any interests of this brand.
We can be their stepping stones, giving them back the experience of operating overseas and all of it. Now I am waiting for Changsha to open up overseas markets, and I am still more willing to communicate with them. ”
The implication is that it is legal to preemptively register a trademark in South Korea, and he is waiting for Chayan Yuese to go to sea, ** the trademark in his hand.
In this regard, Chayan Yuese also officially responded on Weibo: The other party's behavior is legal, and we have no right to interfere. However, there was no money to pay for the registered trademark of the Korean student.
Tea and joy on Weibo.
There are many similar cases, and on December 11, Master Bao's Weibo topic of responding to the infringement of overseas stores also appeared on the hot search.
In overseas markets such as the United Kingdom, there have been some unauthorized stores operating under the brand of Master Bao, and the store decoration to the brand logo has been completely copied and plagiarized by Master Bao.
Master Bao issued a statement on social platforms that he only operates directly operated stores in China, and has not opened or prepared stores overseas, nor has he authorized any third party to operate overseas on behalf of Master Bao.
Bao Caisheng, the founder of Master Bao, reluctantly said that Master Bao only had 26 stores across the country in 2017, but the number of copycat stores has reached 3,000.
It can be seen that overseas preemptive registration of trademarks has formed a gray industrial chain, which is rampant from upstream to downstream.
Chef Bao pastry Weibo.
But is there really no solution to the matter of overseas squatting?After all brands go overseas, they have to face being maliciously registered by criminals with ulterior motives to make a sum of ill-gotten gains by taking advantage of the laws of other countries
Starbucks, which has opened all over the world, has taught domestic brands a copyright lesson in protecting brand assets.
It is understood that Starbucks has successively applied for trademark registration in more than 120 countries and regions around the world, and then continued to apply for the Madrid Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Trademarks, as an international agreement for trademark protection, Madrid trademark registration applications can cover up to 121 Union countries to apply for protection at one time.
According to the data previously released by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), in 2018, Chinese applicants submitted 6,900 applications for Madrid international trademark registration, a year-on-year increase of 79%, ranking third in the world.
Thailand, to which the Thai copycat version of Luckin belongs, also joined the Madrid Union in August 2017.
However, China Luckin did not apply for global trademark protection in advance through the Madrid Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Trademarks, so this "trademark defense war" was completely lost.
I believe that after this "Li Ghost vs. Li Kui", more brands will understand the importance of protecting brand equity.