After winning one highly publicized trademark infringement case in China, Louis Vuitton made headlines again this week due to another trademark-related case in the country.

According to the website The People’s Court Announcement, the Beijing Intellectual Property Court held a public hearing on Thursday for a trademark dispute case involving Louis Vuitton, the China National Intellectual Property Administration, and a small-business owner named Huang Min Yao.

Details of the case were not disclosed, but Huang, a third-party participant in the case, has registered a “similar pattern,” which was approved by the CNIPA in 2024, according to publicly available registration documents.

The court did not issue a ruling on the case after the hearing on Thursday, according to local media reports, but based on publicly available court documents, this marks the sixth time Louis Vuitton has sued the CNIPA since 2018.

The latest development comes as the French luxury brand is being sharply criticized on Chinese social media platforms for its moves to protect its trademark in China.

“The debate is not about the law. Louis Vuitton is rightfully guarding its most valuable assets with lawsuits; otherwise, it risks trademark dilution — the awkward situation sprang from a nationalist interpretation of what is considered fair or just,” said Gao Ming, managing director of Luxury Practice at Ruder Finn Group in Greater China.

For Louis Vuitton — which registered its brand name, acronym and multiple motifs as “well-known trademarks” in China as early as the late 1980s and has actively defended its intellectual property rights over the years — the recent case against Chinese beverage brand Molly Tea marked the first time one of its trademark disputes has sparked such widespread public controversy.

According to Miaojian, the Chinese public opinion monitoring and data provider, from noon July 2 to noon July 13, information related to the topic generated a total of 220,400 posts on Chinese social media, reaching 94.6 in PBI, or public opinion heat index, indicating an “extremely high-risk public incident,” according to Miaojian.

Topics such as “LV sues Molly Tea, ordered to pay 10.3 million renminbi,” “Molly Tea to appeal,” and “Impact of Molly Tea losing Louis Vuitton trademark infringement case” topped trending charts on Chinese social media platforms including Weibo, Baidu, Douyin and Toutiao, ByteDance’s AI-powered content platform, accumulating a total of 782 hours of visibility online.

While numerous headlines in China questioned Molly Tea’s stance — the company’s applications for trademarking its four-petal floral graphics in China were rejected on multiple occasions — these were quickly overtaken by the parallel trending topic “LV you have no one behind you,” which linked the case to ongoing discussions around cultural heritage and its preservation.

“Even though cultural transmission means there are multiple starting points for things and nobody is wrong — when do we start the historical or cultural conversation, and do we erase the semiotics of this in the contemporary period? Unfortunately, neither IP law nor certain takes on historical provenance are nuanced enough,” observed Carwyn Morris, senior lecturer and research fellow at the SOAS China Institute in London.

“The case is also complicated by both Molly Tea and Louis Vuitton being global, which in turn complicates what Chinese culture means,” said Morris.

Molly Tea currently counts over 2,000 stores in China and seven overseas markets, including the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Australia, Singapore and Indonesia, according to the brand’s Instagram, which has around 9,400 followers.

“The current intangible cultural heritage discourse is quite reductive at times, as it erases how culture has lived and been experienced and changed over time, erasing cultural transmission — Europe has resources inspired by interactions from the colonial period, and China has resources inspired by its interactions with the world over extended periods of time as well,” said Morris.

The dispute also comes at a time when Louis Vuitton plans to expand beyond traditional fashion categories into hospitality and experiential luxury, which explains its increasingly protective stance toward trademark protection.

Louis Vuitton counts two restaurant ventures in China, The Hall by Louis Vuitton in Chengdu and Le Café Louis Vuitton at Shanghai’s The Louis. The latter has become a tourism magnet, helping boost sales across the wider West Nanjing Road retail corridor.

Elsewhere, the luxury maison recently opened a hotel-themed pop-up in London, which comes with a Champagne bar, a restaurant, and a care-and-repair service. Earlier this year, the hotel pop-up opened in Shanghai’s Xuhui district, at Vuitton’s SoHo store in New York City, and at its Dosan location in Seoul.

Despite winding queues that surround The Louis, in the realm of the digital space, public discourse continued to spin the story against Vuitton. Over the weekend, People’s Opinion, an op-ed platform owned by the Chinese state media People’s Daily, stepped in and sought to defuse the heat around Louis Vuitton’s supposed “monopoly” of the floral motif.

“Many internationally renowned brands have, to varying degrees, drawn inspiration from traditional Chinese decorative patterns in their signature designs…At a time when artificial intelligence is advancing rapidly, China should explore establishing a comprehensive database of traditional Chinese aesthetics, including traditional decorative patterns,” People’s Opinion said.

“It is important to note that People’s Opinion, a social media commentary account affiliated with People’s Daily, should not be equated with the newspaper’s formal editorial position. Its commentary should therefore not be taken as a definitive indication of Beijing’s official view on the issue,” Gao pointed out.

For Gao, more visibility from legal and industry professionals is much needed online.

“This is a chance to build legal literacy. In trademark law, there is actually no rule stating that elements from traditional Chinese culture cannot be used as trademarks. Many cultural elements — including Western or other cultural symbols — have also been registered as trademarks in China,” Gao said.

For Zhou Ting, dean of the Yaok Institute, a luxury research and consulting organization in China, Louis Vuitton could proactively communicate its intellectual property protection framework, at least to its most important clients.

“The message should ultimately focus on the idea that ‘protecting intellectual property is, at its core, protecting every consumer who chooses authentic products,’” said Zhou.

“The brand could also publicly commit to directing any compensation received from the dispute toward initiatives such as the preservation of Chinese traditional culture or support for emerging local designers,” Zhou added.

For Gao, how luxury brands can navigate a cultural war comes down to a more proactive risk management plan and a rebalancing approach post-crisis.

“Over the last five years, we have increased such efforts. When a brand is developing an advertising campaign or PR campaign, we get involved from the concept and creative stages to assess the assets involved; sometimes this extends to the product level. One of our clients once developed an advertising campaign specifically targeting the Chinese market, but it incorporated some strong Japanese cultural elements; there was nothing inherently problematic about it until geopolitical tension rose again late last year,” said Gao.

“The more challenging question now is how brands should respond in an environment where public sentiment has become more sensitive. There is a need for gradual and long-term rebalancing; brands need to rethink and redesign future programs to build closer connections with local communities,” Gao added.