Illustration: Chen Xia/GT

A high-profile trademark lawsuit between French luxury giant Louis Vuitton (LV) and Chinese tea chain Molly Tea has ignited fierce cross-cutting debates over intellectual property, cultural heritage and global design exchanges across Chinese social media. 

On Thursday, the Suzhou Intermediate People's Court ruled that Molly Tea had infringed upon seven registered four-petal floral trademarks owned by LV, ordering the beverage brand to pay total compensation of 10.3 million yuan ($1.52 million) for economic losses and legal expenses. Molly Tea has announced plans to file an appeal, keeping the verdict unenforceable for now. 

While the decision adheres to existing Chinese trademark laws and commercial IP regulations, it has triggered intense public pushback in China. A core source of public discontent lies in the cultural provenance of LV's signature four-leaf Monogram motif. 

LV's iconic pattern draws clear visual inspiration from the baoxiang (precious flower) decorative motifs of China's Tang Dynasty (618-907).

The public outcry stems from tangible cultural evidence widely shared across social platforms. On the Chinese lifestyle platform Xiaohongshu (RedNote), Chinese users have been posting side-by-side images suggesting LV's pattern was inspired by traditional Chinese motifs, including the baoxiang motif and more. Others have uploaded photos of a Tang Dynasty rosewood pipa and the four-petal window lattice at the Humble Administrator's Garden (Zhouzhengyuan) in Suzhou, East China's Jiangsu Province, all bearing a similar quatrefoil design.

The case has also tapped into deeper public anger over what many see as a long history of cultural appropriation by global luxury brands. Netizens brought up previous controversies, such as Dior's skirt design resembling China's traditional horse-face skirt.

Wang Xianhua, dean of the School of Humanities at the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, told the Global Times on Tuesday that LV's Monogram pattern was finalized in 1896, when founder Georges Vuitton freely incorporated classic Eastern cultural patterns as core design elements with no regulatory or cultural constraints. 

"This unregulated practice was a product of the colonial-era European mind-set, which permitted the arbitrary appropriation of Eastern cultural elements while disregarding their inherent cultural context and historical connotations," Wang said.

Indeed, the core root of this imbalance stems from an inherent mismatch between modern intellectual property rules and the inheritance of traditional cultural symbols. 

Unlike original modern commercial designs with clear individual creators and registration timelines, traditional patterns are collective cultural achievements polished and inherited by ordinary people over thousands of years. 

As Huang Qingsui, founder of China's Traditional Pattern Database, observed, traditional decorative motifs are inclusive, cross-civilizational cultural genes rather than exclusive private assets. 

However, today's trademark system is designed for modern commercial competition, centered on prior registration and exclusive commercial rights. Western luxury brands, leveraging early globalization advantages, completed trademark registration and commercial customization of many East Asian cultural motifs in the last century. 

Through subtle modifications and long-term commercial applications, these publicly originated cultural elements have solidified into exclusive brand assets. In stark contrast, ancient traditional cultural symbols from civilizations like China lacked legal collective subjects and early registration channels. 

Beijing-based cultural scholar Yu Jinlong told the Global Times that this creates an unfair "institutional time difference": Ancient collective cultural creations are locked into exclusive commercial rights by modern corporate registration, while indigenous inheritors and innovative brands face unnecessary restrictions when reviving their own cultural traditions.

Beyond the time-gap imbalance, the global lack of unified institutional norms for the commercialization of traditional cultural heritage further exacerbates the chaos. Current intellectual property frameworks prioritize the protection of original commercial works but fail to draw clear boundaries for the commercial use of public cultural symbols. 

Many ancient cultural motifs, which belong to the public domain, can be easily monopolized by individual brands through commercial packaging, leaving little room for cultural inheritance and inclusive innovation.

Fortunately, global explorations have offered viable solutions to break this deadlock. Many ancient civilizations have rolled out targeted regulatory mechanisms to balance cultural sharing and commercial protection. 

Media reported that New Zealand has enshrined the tribal ownership of the Ka Mate dance in dedicated legislation, requiring official attribution for all commercial use. The World Intellectual Property Organization has also promoted relevant rules requiring the disclosure of traditional resource sources, aiming to prevent the privatization and monopoly of public cultural heritage.

The Molly Tea vs LV dispute is far more than a regional trademark case. It exposes a universal loophole in modern intellectual property governance: The current system is insufficiently adaptable to the inheritance and innovation of ancient collective cultural heritage. 

As cultural scholar Yu noted, with global cultural exchanges deepen, updating IP rules to respect the collective nature of traditional heritage will be key to fair, inclusive cross-border cultural and creative development.

The author is a reporter with the Global Times. life@globaltimes.com.cn