Saturnbird Coffee Wins Lawsuit Against Copycats! Instant Coffee Brand Protects Original Packaging Design

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Recently, domestic media reported that SATURNBIRD spent 20 months filing a lawsuit against a coffee brand called "Colorful Mystery" for unauthorized use of a packaging appearance similar to SATURNBIRD's small-cup instant coffee, constituting unfair competition.

Ultimately, the "Colorful Mystery" brand was ordered by the Intermediate People's Court of Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province to compensate SATURNBIRD with 1.73 million yuan for economic losses and reasonable expenses, and to cease production and sales of infringing products.

Many young consumers first became familiar with SATURNBIRD because they were attracted to the brand's product design—super-soluble coffee + minimalist packaging + mini coffee cup shape + visual impact from colors. Upon launch, it immediately became popular among young consumers.

Due to its novel design and environmentally friendly coffee packaging that naturally carries a "Hey! Keep me for DIY" appeal, consumers were encouraged to preserve the packaging for DIY transformations, creating various small potted plants, decorative pendants, and more, which they shared across social media platforms, thereby attracting more young users' attention to the brand's products.

Since its launch, SATURNBIRD has swept social media with its high "photogenic quality," and increasingly more coffee brands have subsequently launched products with similar-style packaging. In recent years, the small-cup product design has been constantly discussed, analyzed, imitated, and even plagiarized within the industry.

Why This Particular Lawsuit?

With so many brands having similar product designs, why did SATURNBIRD choose to sue a relatively unknown brand? Because this went beyond simple inspiration.

According to the infringement evidence provided by SATURNBIRD to the media, the "Colorful Mystery" brand showed significant similarity to SATURNBIRD's products in terms of product style, packaging design, promotional images, and content.

Even in product search terms, keywords like "SATURNBIRD alternative" were added, allowing users to see this brand's products when searching for SATURNBIRD. Due to the similar style and product appearance, misleading information was conveyed that caused consumer confusion.

Therefore, starting from December 29, 2020, SATURNBIRD began legal proceedings against "Colorful Mystery" to protect its rights, until the final judgment was reached on September 2nd this year.

The Challenge of Protecting Intellectual Property

Since there are no legal definitions distinguishing plagiarism from imitation or referencing, when original products from many brands encounter similar products from other brands, brand owners often endure the situation because rights protection is time-consuming and costly. Consequently, awareness and emphasis on intellectual property protection in the food industry are not strong.

Low cost of imitation and high traffic gains have made following popular product designs of major brands the starting point for many smaller brands. Whether searching for "coffee beans" or "instant coffee," the packaging design layouts among brands show striking similarities, and the "homogenization" phenomenon in industry products has become increasingly severe.

Directly copying main elements is called plagiarism, while analyzing main elements and flexibly applying their key aspects is called inspiration. As this phenomenon becomes more common, the line between plagiarism and inspiration has become increasingly blurred, making the path to rights protection for original creators more difficult.

Protecting Original Design

Therefore, when a design is truly 100% original, designers need to apply for copyrights/patents/trademark exclusive rights before putting it into use and production. This way, when necessary, rights protection can be directly pursued based on intellectual property.

If such protections haven't been secured, but other brands' promotional materials do cause consumer confusion, rights can be protected under the provisions regarding "imitation and confusion" in the Anti-Unfair Competition Law.

There have been similar cases before, such as the case of ChaYanYueSe suing ChaYanGuanSe that became a trending topic on social media at the end of last year.

The Importance of Taking Action

When facing plagiarism and unfair competition, original creators/brands should not remain passive. The more imitative products there are, the more impact they will have on the original product's reputation and consumers' judgment of brand quality.

Rights protection is a necessary means to protect one's interests, as well as a commitment and guarantee to supporters of originality and to consumers.

Image sources: Internet, Xiaohongshu, FBIF Food & Beverage Innovation

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