LV v. Molimilk: A Ruling Rewritten Three Times by Public Opinion / LV诉茉莉奶白案的代价

On the evening of October 12, 2026, at LVMH’s third-quarter earnings call, group CFO Cécile Cabanis acknowledged for the first time that the public controversy triggered by LV’s suit against Molimilk “did have a negative impact, at least early in the quarter,” while stressing that LVMH would not halt its investment in China — barely three months earlier, the same company had dodged the question with only “intellectual property is our absolute core asset.” The cost has finally been laid on the table; but what is more worth recording than the cost is that this judgment had its facts rewritten by public opinion three times in three months, and each rewrite conveniently erased the constraints it placed on the plaintiff. To see clearly what was rewritten, one must return to the judgment itself.

2026 年 10 月 12 日晚，LVMH 三季度业绩说明会上，集团首席财务官塞西尔·卡巴尼斯首次承认，LV 诉茉莉奶白引发的舆论争议”至少在季度初确实产生了负面影响”，同时强调不会停止在华投入——三个多月前，同一家公司还只用”知识产权是我们绝对的核心资产”回避这个问题。代价终于被摆上台面；但比代价更值得记录的，是这份判决在三个月里被舆论重写了三次事实，每一次改写，都恰好抹去了它对原告的约束。要看清被改写的是什么，得回到那份判决本身。

On June 29, 2026, the Suzhou Intermediate People’s Court issued a first-instance ruling in the trademark infringement dispute of Louis Vuitton Malletier v. Shenzhen Molimilk Catering Management Co., Ltd. and Wuzhong Economic Development Zone Dongxia Beverage Shop, finding that the exclusive rights in seven four-leaf floral device trademarks had been infringed, ordering the principal company to pay 10 million yuan in damages for economic loss and 300,000 yuan in reasonable enforcement costs, with the franchise store jointly liable within 100,000 yuan, and requiring a statement to be published on its official website and the homepages of five online platforms, case No. (2025) Su 05 Min Chu 617.

2026 年 6 月 29 日，苏州市中级人民法院就路易威登马利蒂诉深圳市茉莉奶白餐饮管理有限公司、吴中经济开发区东侠饮品店侵害商标权纠纷一案作出一审判决，认定七件四叶花卉图形注册商标的专用权受到侵害，判令主体公司赔偿经济损失 1000 万元、维权合理开支 30 万元，加盟门店在 10 万元范围内承担连带责任，并须在官网及五个线上平台首页刊登声明，案号（2025）苏05民初617号。

The ruling was made public on July 2 and shot to the top of the trending list that day. Over the following three months, the discussion turned three times: first asking “why can a luxury house police a milk tea across classes,” then “why can foreign-registered patterns be claimed over our ancestors’ designs,” and finally “why 10.3 million.” Each turn moved further from the judgment.

判决 7 月 2 日公开，当天冲上热搜。此后三个多月，讨论经历了三次转向：先问”奢侈品凭什么跨类管奶茶”，再问”老祖宗的纹样凭什么被外国人注册”，最后问”1030 万凭什么”。三次转向，一次比一次离判决更远。

In the author’s view, the first-instance judgment holds up on both fact-finding and legal application, and its density of reasoning is rare among comparable cases; yet nearly every main criticism rests on a premise that does not hold — that the four-leaf flower equals the baoxiang flower, that this was a well-known-mark cross-class case, that the basis of the ruling was concealed, and that the damages were pulled from thin air. Four premises, tested one by one.

笔者认为，一审判决在事实认定与法律适用上均可成立，其说理密度在同类案件中属少见的一档；而针对它的主要质疑，几乎每一条都建立在一个不成立的前提上——四叶花等于宝相花，本案是驰名跨类，判决依据被隐瞒，赔偿数额是拍脑袋。四个前提，逐一检验。

01 The Four-Leaf Flower Is Not the Baoxiang Flower

01　四叶花不是宝相花

Equating the four-leaf flower with the baoxiang flower or the persimmon-calya pattern mistakes a single design element for a complete design; it is a basic error in design history and the original error behind all the cultural criticism.

把四叶花等同于宝相花或柿蒂纹，是把一个构成元素冒充成一幅完整图案；这是设计史的常识错误，也是全部文化质疑的起点错误。

The baoxiang flower is a compound ideal flower of the Tang dynasty, with no real plant as its model; rather it layers lotus petals, scrolling foliage, and a multi-tier flower heart into a “rosette”-style radial structure, common in Dunhuang caisson ceilings and Tang brocades. The persimmon-calya pattern is earlier still, found everywhere on Han-dynasty bronze mirrors, lacquerware, and eaves tiles, its form drawn from the four-way symmetry of a persimmon’s calyx, with four petals spreading outward and a square-diamond center. The two belong to different eras and different structures: one a native reinvention after Buddhism reached China, the other a geometric motif fixed by the Han.

宝相花是唐代的复合理想花，不以真实植物为原型，而是把莲瓣、卷草与多层花心叠合，形成”团窠”式的放射结构，常见于敦煌藻井与唐代织锦。柿蒂纹更早，汉代铜镜、漆器、瓦当上遍地都是，形态取自柿子果蒂的四向对称，四瓣向外舒展，中心常作方胜。二者分属两个时代、两套结构：一为佛教东传后的本土再造，一为汉代已定型的几何母题。

LV’s Monogram four-leaf flower is yet another matter. In 1896 Georges Vuitton designed the pattern for anti-counterfeiting: four rounded petals around a central diamond, framed by a lattice and four-pointed stars. The official account of its inspiration is a mix of kitchen-tile patterns, neo-Gothic ornament, and Oriental motifs. Its composition is the fixed combination of “lattice ground + rounded four petals + four-pointed stars,” not an isolated flower.

LV 的 Monogram 四叶花又是另一回事。1896 年乔治·威登为防伪设计这套图案，四瓣圆润花瓣环绕中心菱形，外框以菱格与四角星分隔，官方对其灵感的表述是家宅厨房瓷砖、新哥特装饰与东方纹饰的混合。它的构图是”菱格底纹＋圆角四瓣＋四角星”的固定组合，而非一朵孤立的花。

What the three share is only the single motif of “four-fold symmetry.” In design theory, motif and pattern sit on two different levels: a motif may be freely used, while a pattern is a fixed form shaped by specific elements at specific proportions, curves, and spacing. Sharing a motif is not sharing a pattern, just as anyone may paint with red yet no one may thereby copy the same painting.

三者共享的，只是”四瓣对称”这一个母题。设计学上，母题（motif）与图案（pattern）分属两个层级：母题可自由取用，图案则是特定元素在特定比例、弧度、间距下形成的定式。共用母题不等于共用图案，正如人人可以用红色作画，却无人因此可以复制同一幅画。

The problem with the early reporting lies here: it made “the four-leaf flower originates in China” into a headline, translated a dispute over the levels of pattern theory into a clash of national sentiment, used national emotion to preset a stance on a technical question, then used that stance to challenge a judgment that never denied the pattern’s origin. This is not discussion; it is changing the subject. Once the subject is changed, any professional answer is doomed to sound like sophistry. But the real question is: if we have not even established whether it is the same design, on what grounds do we demand the court reverse itself?

早期报道的问题就在这里：把”四叶花源自中国”做成标题，把纹样学的层级之争转译成民族感情之争，用民族情感为一个技术问题预设立场，再用这个立场去质问一份从未否认纹样归属的判决。这不是讨论，是换题。换题之后，任何专业回答都注定被听成狡辩。可问题是：如果连”是不是同一幅图案”都尚未弄清，我们又凭什么要求法院改判？

02 This Was Not a Well-Known-Mark Cross-Class Case

02　本案不是驰名商标跨类保护案

From first instance to last, the court found none of the involved trademarks well known and cited no Article 13 of the Trademark Law; correct this premise and half the criticisms collapse on the spot.

一审自始至终没有认定任何一件涉案商标为驰名，也没有援引《商标法》第十三条；纠正这个前提，半数质疑会当场失效。

The explanation that spread rapidly after the ruling was made public: riding on its fame in leather goods, LV barred a milk-tea shop from using the four-leaf flower across classes. This account appeared in a large number of media reports and in several law-firm public accounts, nearly becoming consensus. Yet it was not the legal path of this case.

判决公开后迅速流传的解释是：LV 凭其在箱包皮具上的驰名地位，跨类禁止了一家奶茶店使用四叶花。这个说法出现在大量媒体报道中，也出现在若干律所的公号文章里，几乎已成共识。而它并不是本案的法律路径。

LV asserted seven device trademarks, whose approved use spanned bags, jewelry, clothing, phone cases, packaging bags, candles, and cups (Classes 18, 14, 25, 9, 16, 4, 21), as well as Class 43 cafés and restaurant services. Per public trademark records, trademark No. 61812517A was applied for on December 30, 2021, approved for registration on September 21, 2022, and approved for Class 43 similar groups 4301, 4302, 4306. The existence of this one mark fundamentally changed the structure of the whole case: a milk-tea store’s food service is the same kind of service as cafés and restaurants under similar group 4301, so LV needed to prove neither fame nor cross-class applicability; the ruling rested on Article 57(2) of the Trademark Law, while the defendant’s peripheral products each fell, one by one, within the approved classes of the other six marks.

LV 主张七件图形注册商标，核定使用涵盖箱包、珠宝、服装、手机壳、包装袋、蜡烛、杯子（第 18、14、25、9、16、4、21 类），以及第 43 类咖啡馆与餐厅服务。据公开商标档案，第 61812517A 号商标申请于 2021 年 12 月 30 日，2022 年 9 月 21 日获准注册，核定于第 43 类 4301、4302、4306 类似群。这一件商标的存在，使全案结构彻底改变：奶茶门店的餐饮服务与咖啡馆、餐厅同属 4301 类似群，属同一种服务，LV 无须证明驰名，也无须证明跨类；判决据以裁判的是《商标法》第五十七条第二项，被告的周边产品则逐一落入其余六件商标的核定类别。

In other words, it was not LV reaching across to sue over milk tea, but the defendant’s “peripheral empire” walking itself into the reach of seven registered trademarks. Article 56 limits exclusive rights to “the trademark as approved for registration and the goods as approved for use” — that is both the scope and the cost of the right: the very reason LV registered and maintains seven marks class by class is that protection can only be drawn along class lines and cannot be blanketed by brand prestige.

换句话说，不是 LV 跨界打了奶茶，而是被告的”周边帝国”自己走进了七件注册商标的射程。第五十六条把专用权限定于”核准注册的商标”和”核定使用的商品”，这既是权利的范围，也是权利的成本——LV 之所以要逐类注册、维持七件，正因为保护范围只能按类别划定，无法凭品牌声量一揽子覆盖。

So the question “why should a bag-seller police a cup of milk tea” does not hold at the factual level. Public opinion misread a same-class dispute as a cross-class one, and the reach of its anger was badly misaimed.

那么，”一个卖包的凭什么管一杯奶茶”这一追问，在事实层面就不成立。舆论把同类之争误读成了跨界之争，愤怒的射程因此严重偏移。

A second set of facts, likewise overlooked, is crucial: Molimilk was not sued out of the blue. China’s trademark website shows the brand applied multiple times since 2023 for four-leaf floral device marks; its March 2024 application was rejected for similarity to LV’s prior mark, and rejected again on review, with the China National Intellectual Property Administration expressly finding “likely to cause confusion or mistaken recognition among the relevant public”; it then filed seventeen more, all ending in rejection or invalidation. In August 2024, LV sent two letters demanding cessation, and the defendant, after confirming receipt, kept rolling out even more similar packaging and merchandise.

第二组被略过的事实同样关键：茉莉奶白并非猝然被诉。中国商标网显示，该品牌自 2023 年起多次申请四叶花卉图形商标，2024 年 3 月申请因与 LV 在先商标近似被驳回，复审再被驳回，国家知识产权局明确认定”易导致相关公众混淆误认”；此后又申请十七件，结局均为驳回或无效。2024 年 8 月，LV 两次发函要求停止侵权，被告确认收函后仍继续推出更为近似的包装与周边。

Spread this timeline out and the nature changes: this was not an accidental look-alike, but acceleration after being told it was one. The core fact on which the court found subjective intent is precisely “continued large-scale commercial use after rejection of the application” — not speculation, not backward inference, but a sequence of acts directly recorded in the industry registry and the correspondence.

把这组时间排开，性质就变了：这不是无心撞脸，而是被告知撞脸之后仍然加速。判决据以认定主观故意的核心事由，正是”申请被驳回仍大规模商用”——不是推测，不是倒推，而是工商档案与函件往来直接记录下来的行为序列。

03 Where Those Two “New Pieces of Evidence” Came From

03　那两条”新证据”从哪里来

The two key facts that powered the public-opinion reversal — that LV lost its suit against the CNIPA, and that LV sued over a residential compound’s carved ornaments — one was expressly denied by the court, the other found unrelated to the pattern; they are not extensions of the case but abnormal proofs.

支撑舆论逆转的两条关键事实——LV 起诉国知局败诉、LV 起诉小区建筑雕花——一条被法院明确否认，一条被查明与纹样无关；它们不是案件的延伸，而是反常的明证。

First the CNIPA one. On July 16, 2026, the Beijing Intellectual Property Court heard a trademark administrative dispute with Louis Vuitton Malletier as plaintiff, the China National Intellectual Property Administration as defendant, and an individual clothing operator from Shantou, Guangdong, Huang Minyao, as third party, case No. (2026) Jing 73 Xing Chu 4727, with no entity connection to Molimilk. In late August, the internet circulated that “the Beijing Intellectual Property Court rejected all of LV’s claims at first instance.” On August 21, the Beijing Intellectual Property Court explicitly responded: the report was untrue; the case is still under trial and no first-instance ruling has been issued.

先看国知局那一条。2026 年 7 月 16 日，北京知识产权法院开庭审理一起商标行政纠纷，原告为路易威登马利蒂，被告为国家知识产权局，第三人为广东汕头的个体服装经营者黄民耀，案号（2026）京73行初4727号，与茉莉奶白无任何主体关联。8 月下旬，网络流传”北京知识产权法院一审驳回 LV 全部诉讼请求”。8 月 21 日，北京知识产权法院明确回应：该消息并不属实，案件仍在审理，尚未作出一审裁判。

A judgment that does not exist was thus used to build momentum for the whole event. On this chain, the court’s role was not that of adjudicator but of a co-opted endorser.

一条不存在的判决，就这样被用来为整个事件造势。在这条链条上，法院的角色不是裁判者，而是被征用的背书人。

Now the carved-ornament one. The internet has long circulated that LV sued a property developer to forbid Chinese-style carved ornaments in a residential compound, as proof of its “cultural hunting.” Yet per the facts verified afterward, what LV sued over was shops along the compound’s street selling counterfeit luxury goods; the developer and property manager were joined only for site-management liability, and the case had nothing to do with garden carving or architectural patterns. To rewrite an anti-counterfeiting lawsuit as a cultural one, all it takes is deleting the two words “selling fakes.”

再看建筑雕花那一条。网络长期流传 LV 起诉房企、禁止小区使用中式雕花，用以证明其”文化狩猎”。而据事后核实的案情，LV 起诉的是小区沿街售卖假冒奢侈品的商铺，开发商与物业仅因场地管理责任被列为连带被告，案件与园林雕花、建筑纹样毫无关联。把一场打假诉讼改写为一场文化诉讼，只需要删掉”售假”两个字。

This grafting harms exactly what it claims to protect. The first-instance ruling was served on July 1; the appeal period is thirty days; the second instance had not yet begun when an “internet verdict” was already circulating online. To adjudge an un finalized ruling on the basis of artificially trimmed news, then demand reversal on the strength of public-opinion volume — this is not oversight but a stress test on the appellate court. Once the judiciary yields to the test, every foreign-related trademark case thereafter will face the same question: what is judged is not the law but the current intensity of online emotion.

这种嫁接恰好伤害了它声称要保护的东西。一审判决 7 月 1 日送达，上诉期三十日，二审尚未开始，网络上已流传一份”网络审判结论”。用人为剪裁的消息为未生效判决定性，再以舆情规模要求改判——这不是监督，是对上诉审的压力测试。司法一旦在测试中让步，此后所有涉外商标案件都将面对同一个问题：判的不是法，是网络情绪当期的强度。

The direction of this line is unambiguous: first deny the right’s basis, calling the case a well-known-mark cross-class matter; then deny the right’s object, saying the pattern was originally Chinese; finally deny judicial fairness, saying the ruling favors foreign capital. Once the three steps are done, a technical ruling is rewritten into a cultural event, and in the rewritten version the facts that the plaintiff had a separate icon registration covering the relevant classes, and that the defendant kept using the marks after multiple rejections, all disappear.

这条线路的走向并不含糊：先否认权利基础，说本案是驰名跨类；再否认权利客体资格，说纹样本属中国；最后否认司法公正，说判决偏袒外资。三步走完，一份技术性判决就被改写为一场文化事件，而在改写后的版本里，原告有单独图标注册，品类涵盖相关类别，被告申请被驳多次后仍使用这些事实，全部消失不见。

04 The 10.3 Million Was Not Pulled From Thin Air

04　1030 万元不是拍脑袋

Basing the amount on franchise fees, discretionarily setting the trademark’s contribution, and breaking the statutory cap when infringing profits clearly exceed it — these three steps all appear in the Supreme People’s Court’s gazette cases; those who fault the first instance mostly preset their stance first.

以加盟费为基数、酌定商标贡献度、并在侵权获利明显超过法定上限时突破上限，这三步在最高人民法院的公报案例里都走过；苛责一审的人，多半先预设了立场。

Where the professional fight is fiercest is the damages amount, so exactly what in the first-instance calculation is being questioned?

在专业领域争夺最多的是判赔数额，那么一审判决中这份算式究竟被质疑在哪里？

First the side that was rejected. LV claimed 50 million yuan, computed as single-store monthly profit of 50,000 yuan times a cumulative store count of 35,908, yielding infringing profit of about 1.795 billion yuan. The court rejected this computation for good reason: franchisees operate and account independently, so their profit is not the brand owner’s profit; the “cumulative store count” accrues month by month and matches the number of stores in operation at no point in time. This reasoning is a real constraint on the plaintiff.

先说被否定的一方。LV 主张 5000 万元，算法是单店月盈利 5 万元乘以累计门店 35908 家，得出侵权获利约 17.95 亿元。法院驳回这一算法，理由正当：加盟商独立经营、独立核算，其利润不等于品牌方获利；”累计门店数”逐月累加，与任何时点的在营门店数都不相符。这段说理是对原告的实质约束。

The path the court adopted instead: taking the actually collected franchise cooperation fee (50,000 yuan per store) and brand-management fee (2% of store revenue) as the base, computed over 2,268 stores in operation, and discretionarily finding the involved trademark’s contribution to the above income to be no less than 10%, arriving at 10 million yuan. The arithmetic: 2,268 × 50,000 × 10% ≈ 11.34 million, rounded to 10 million.

法院改采的路径是：以实际收取的加盟合作费（每店 5 万元）与品牌管理费（门店营业额 2%）为基数，按 2268 家在营门店计算，酌定涉案商标对上述收入的贡献度不低于 10%，得出 1000 万元。算式是 2268×5 万×10%≈1134 万，酌定 1000 万。

The dispute centers on that 10%. Critics say it gave no reasoning — that half-sentence is right, but the conclusion is wrong. The judgment gave four reasons: not all of the trademark’s profit is contributed by the accused mark; the defendant’s own word mark also enjoys fame, and the accused device’s fame in food service is limited; the defendant launched coffee business even after being sued, showing clear subjective intent; and the brand-management fee was not counted in the formula. The first two point to a discount, the latter two to an increase; what is truly lacking is not reason but weight — the judgment did not explain how those ten percentage points emerged from the four. This is a matter of fineness, not of basis; the remedy is for the second instance to supplement the reasoning, not to overturn the amount.

争议集中在那 10%。批评者说它没有说理，这句话有一半道理，但结论错了。判决给了四项理由：商标获利并非全部由被诉标识贡献；被告自有文字商标亦具知名度，涉案图形在餐饮服务上的知名度有限；被告涉诉后仍推出咖啡业务，主观故意明显；品牌管理费未计入算式。前两项指向打折，后两项指向加重，真正欠缺的不是理由，而是权重——判决没有交代十个百分点如何从这四项里长出来。这是精细度问题，不是依据问题；救济是二审补充说理，不是推翻数额。

Discretionary contribution is not original to this case. In the Siemens v. Qishuai gazette case, the Supreme People’s Court discretionarily set the accused product’s share in total sales at “one-fifteenth,” awarding 100 million yuan; the New Balance case discretionarily set the accused product’s share in brand sales at 20%; the 3M v. Huawei case explicitly weighed “the contribution rate of using the ‘3N’ mark itself to its profits,” awarding 3.5 million yuan where infringing profit far exceeded the then-statutory cap. The three cases, from the Supreme People’s Court and a high people’s court respectively, show that discretionary contribution shares have always been routine on this path.

酌定贡献率也不是本案独创。最高人民法院公报案例西门子诉奇帅案，按”十五分之一”酌定被诉产品在销售总额中的占比，判赔 1 亿元；新百伦案酌定被诉产品在品牌销售额中的占比为 20%；3M 诉华威案明确考量”使用’3N’商标行为本身对其盈利的贡献率”，在侵权获利远超当时法定上限的情况下判赔 350 万元。三案分别出自最高人民法院与高级人民法院，酌定贡献率占比从来是这条路径上的常规动作。

Breaking the statutory-damages cap also has settled expression: where the specific amount is hard to prove but there is evidence it clearly exceeds the statutory maximum, it should be reasonably determined above the cap on the whole evidentiary record. The Siemens, 3M, and Xiaomi “Xiaoai Tongxue” cases all applied this rule. In this case, the franchise-fee base alone reaches 2,268 × 50,000 ≈ 113 million yuan; taking one-tenth of it is already in the tens of millions.

突破法定赔偿上限亦有稳定表述：难以证明具体数额，但有证据证明其明显超过法定最高限额的，应综合全案证据在限额以上合理确定。西门子案、3M 案、小米”小爱同学”案适用的都是这条规则。本案仅加盟费一项基数即达 2268×5 万≈1.13 亿元，取其一成即是千万量级。

Strictly speaking, this case need not have invoked this channel. The first instance adopted the path of “infringing profit as base, discretionary contribution,” which is the second computation method under Article 63(1) of the Trademark Law, not statutory damages under paragraph 3, and is not subject to the 5-million cap; even on a lenient review, it meets the substantive conditions for breaking the cap. Both paths work; critics fixated only on “5 million,” which is one-sided.

严格说，本案不必动用这条通道。一审采”以侵权获利为基础、酌定贡献度”的路径，属《商标法》第六十三条第一款第二种计算方法，而非第三款法定赔偿，本不受 500 万元上限约束；即便退一步审查，也满足突破上限的实体条件。两条路径都能走通，批评者却只盯着”500 万”，有失偏颇。

There is also an unrecorded restraint: the formula used franchise and management fees, not store revenue, not industry profit margins, and no punitive multiple — under Article 63(1), willful infringement with aggravated circumstances could have set damages at one to five times. At the scale of 2,268 stores and the fact of expansion even after receiving the letters, punitive damages would have far exceeded 10.3 million.

还有一份未被计入的克制：算式用的是加盟费与管理费，没有用门店营业额，没有用行业利润率，也没有适用惩罚性倍数——按第六十三条第一款，对恶意侵权、情节严重的本可在一倍以上五倍以下确定赔偿。以 2268 家门店的规模与收函后仍扩张的情节，若走惩罚性赔偿，数额将远高于 1030 万。

Critics also have a methodological difficulty: most offer no alternative figure. A criticism that only says “too high” without saying “what it should be” cannot be tested or rebutted, and therefore is not an effective legal argument. It reads more like an after-the-fact sigh than a before-the-fact standard.

批评者还有一个方法论上的困难：他们大多没有给出替代数字。一个只说”太高”而不说”应当是多少”的批评，无法被检验，也无法被反驳，因而在法律上不构成有效论证。它更像事后的感叹，而不是事前的标准。

05 “Protecting Traditional Patterns” Is a False Premise

05　”保护传统纹样”是个伪命题

Treating “traditional patterns need special legislation for protection” as the lesson of this case is a bandwagon false premise; the Trademark Law never forbids using public-domain elements — it forbids using someone else’s specific source-indicating sign as your own signboard.

把”传统纹样需要专门立法保护”当作本案的启示，是一个跟风抛出的伪命题；商标法从不禁止使用公有元素，它禁止的是把别人的特定来源指示标志当作自己的招牌。

Return to the current law. Article 59 provides that where a registered trademark contains a generic design or model of the goods, or directly indicates the goods’ characteristics, the right holder may not prohibit others’ fair use. Whether a mark is distinctive has always been a concept bound to specific goods and services; one cannot discuss distinctiveness or fair use in the abstract, detached from the goods and services.

先回到现行法。第五十九条规定，注册商标中含有本商品通用图形、型号或者直接表示商品特点的，专用权人无权禁止他人正当使用。商标是否具有显著性，从来都是和具体商品、服务绑定的概念，不能脱离商品、服务泛泛谈是否有显著性，是否能够合理使用。

So, since the four-leaf flower is a public-domain element, why could Molimilk not avail itself of this defense? Because this public-domain element has already been registered by another as a trademark on the relevant goods and services, and Molimilk used it in a trademark sense — for instance, placed at prominent identifying positions such as the storefront, cup body, and packaging. The judgment cited Article 76 of the Implementing Regulations of the Trademark Law, bringing “using a sign identical or similar to another’s registered trademark as a trade dress on the same or similar goods, misleading the public” within Article 57(2), precisely for this situation.

那么，既然四叶花是公有元素，茉莉奶白为什么用不上这条抗辩？因为这个公有元素已经被他人注册为相关商品、服务上的商标，而它用的方式构成商标性使用，例如置于门头、杯身、包装等显著识别位置。判决援引《商标法实施条例》第七十六条，将”在同一种或者类似商品上将与他人注册商标相同或者近似的标志作为商品装潢使用，误导公众的”纳入第五十七条第二项，正是针对这种情形。

Now the repeatedly raised legislative suggestion: establish special protection for traditional patterns. It sounds legitimate but fails the first question — who is the right holder? Han-dynasty craftsmen have no heirs, Tang baoxiang flowers have no copyright owner, and Suzhou garden lattice windows belong to a cultural-relics unit, the local government, or the whole nation? To create a right one must first designate a body to exercise it on behalf of all; once that body is formed, the first in line to grant licenses and collect fees will not be foreign brands but domestic small and mid-sized guofeng designers and cultural-creative merchants.

再看那个被反复提出的立法建议：为传统纹样设立专门保护。它听上去正当，却经不起第一个追问——权利人是谁。汉代工匠没有继承人，唐代宝相花没有著作权人，苏州园林的漏窗属于文保单位、地方政府还是全体国民？设权必先指定一个代表全民行权的主体，而这个主体一旦成立，它发放许可、收取费用的第一顺位对象，不会是外国品牌，而是国内的中小国风设计师与文创商家。

The vitality of cultural elements lies in dissemination, not exclusivity. Dunhuang patterns have lived fifteen hundred years precisely because countless generations freely copied, varied, and recreated them — not because of any pattern-protection law. Dissemination needs low-threshold access; “pattern rights” supply exactly high-threshold licensing. Locking patterns into a certificate of rights looks like protection but actually moves them from public life into a safe.

文化元素的生命力在于传播，不在于排他。敦煌纹样之所以活了一千五百年，靠的是无数代人自由临摹、变形、再创造，而不是任何一部纹样保护法。传播需要低门槛的取用，”纹样权”提供的恰恰是高门槛的许可。把纹样锁进权利证书，看上去是保护，实际是把它从公共生活搬进保险柜。

The Trademark Law’s existing structure is in fact already the optimal solution to this problem: elements are open; the exception is protection for marks registered as trademarks; what is forbidden is trademark use. Anyone may freely use the four-leaf flower motif for cultural creation and dissemination, but may not use another’s registered trademark on identical or similar goods. This structure preserves both the public nature of culture and the trademark registration and protection system — without the latter half, whoever is willing to spend thirty years turning a device into a brand would have no reason to make the long-term investment.

商标法的现有结构，其实已是这个问题的最优解：元素开放，注册为商标的例外保护，禁止的是商标性使用。任何人可以自由使用四叶花这一母题进行文化创作和传播，但不能在相同类似商品上使用他人已注册商标。这个结构既保住文化的公共性，也保住商标注册和保护制度——没有后一半，愿意花三十年把一个图形做成品牌的人，将没有任何理由做长期投入。

06 A Judgment That Rejected Two of the Plaintiff’s Claims

06　一份同时驳回了原告两项主张的判决

What is truly worth recording in this case is not the 10.3 million, but a judgment whose facts were rewritten by public opinion three times in three months; and the direction of the rewrite was precisely to erase every constraint the judgment placed on the plaintiff.

本案真正值得记录的，不是 1030 万，而是一份判决在三个月内被舆论重写了三次事实；而重写的方向，恰恰是把判决中对原告的约束全部抹去。

Looking back at this judgment, it constrained the plaintiff in at least four ways: it acknowledged that the four-leaf clover belongs to the common culture of humankind and denied the plaintiff’s exclusive claim to the element; it made clear that ordinary consumers might not mistake the product as originating from Louis Vuitton, finding only associated confusion and raising the confusion threshold a notch; it rejected the plaintiff’s algorithm deriving 1.795 billion yuan from the cumulative store count; and it found no mark well known, refusing cross-class protection. A judgment that limits the right holder at four points can hardly be called favoring foreign capital.

回看这份判决，它对原告的约束至少有四处：承认四叶草属于人类共同文化，否认原告对该元素的独占；明确普通消费者可能不会将产品误认为来源于路易威登，只认定关联混淆，把混淆门槛抬高一档；否定原告以累计门店数推算 17.95 亿元的算法；未认定任何一件商标驰名，拒绝给予跨类保护。一份在四个节点上都限制权利人的判决，很难被称为偏袒外资。

It also has debatable points, which are technical work the second instance can fill in, not fundamental flaws enough to overturn the conclusion.

它也有可议之处，属二审可以补齐的技术工作，不是足以推翻结论的根本瑕疵。

What is truly worrisome is something else. If this judgment is reversed because of the scale of public opinion, every judicial case thereafter will receive the same signal: facts can be rewritten, as long as enough people rewrite them. What is damaged will be not just one enterprise’s expectations, but all market actors’ trust in the “registration — use — protection” chain — including those Chinese brands that are seriously doing original design and counting on registered trademarks to protect themselves.

真正值得担心的是另一件事。如果这份判决因为舆情规模被改判，此后每一件司法案件都会收到同一个信号：事实可以被重写，只要重写的人足够多。受损的将不只是某一家企业的预期，而是所有市场主体对”注册—使用—保护”这条链条的信赖——包括那些正在认真做原创设计、指望注册商标保护自己的中国品牌。

Patterns belong to everyone; the judgment never denied that. A specific device belongs to whoever registered it and keeps using it; the law has never wavered on that. The two are not zero-sum; calling them zero-sum is the deepest misunderstanding in this whole episode of public opinion.

纹样属于所有人，这一点判决从未否认。特定图形属于注册它并持续使用它的人，这一点法律从未动摇。两者之间不是零和；把它们说成零和，才是这场舆论里最深的误会。

Sources: the first-instance judgment (2025) Su 05 Min Chu 617 of the Suzhou Intermediate People’s Court; (2026) Jing 73 Xing Chu 4727 of the Beijing Intellectual Property Court; related facts per LVMH’s third-quarter earnings call, the Beijing Intellectual Property Court’s public response, and public reports such as Xinhua News Agency.

来源：苏州市中级人民法院（2025）苏05民初617号一审判决；北京知识产权法院（2026）京73行初4727号；相关事实据 LVMH 三季度业绩说明会、北京知识产权法院公开回应及新华社等公开报道。