Luckin Coffee's Thailand rights protection journey has seen new developments.
Recently, Luckin Coffee's target of anti-counterfeiting, Thailand Luckin Coffee, claimed on overseas social media that Luckin Coffee's rights protection in Thailand had failed. Luckin Coffee sued the relevant infringers in 2021 and won the first instance in 2022. However, on that day, the reporter from First Financial did not find the latest judgment result on the Thai court system platform, and Luckin Coffee remained silent on this matter.
The reporter noticed that on overseas social media, Thai Luckin Coffee cited a media report stating that multiple Thai media outlets reported that on December 1st, the Central Court of Intellectual Property and International Trade in Thailand announced the final verdict on the trial of China Luckin Coffee's lawsuit against Thailand's 50R Group for trademark infringement, and claimed that Luckin Coffee lost the case. But the article did not disclose a clear source of information. After multiple investigations, the reporter did not see any clear source reports on the relevant events.
Subsequently, the reporter reviewed the intellectual property and international trade court case system in Thailand and found that Luckin Coffee sued multiple defendants in Thailand in 2021. The reason was that on July 29, 2021, Luckin Coffee China filed an application for trademark registration of "Luckin Coffee" with the Thai Intellectual Property Office and planned to conduct business in Thailand. However, it was found that multiple related trademarks had been preemptively registered, On March 28, 2019, the defendant established Luckin Coffee Thailand Limited and began operating Luckin Coffee in December 2020. Luckin Coffee is suing for the revocation of its trademark registration and requesting relevant parties to suspend the aforementioned trademark.
On November 24, 2022, a Thai court issued a first instance judgment, ruling Luckin Coffee China in favor and requesting the revocation of the relevant trademark registration, and ordering the two defendants to stop using the trademark. The defendant filed an appeal on March 24, 2023 and held another hearing on November 30, 2023, but the verdict on the appeal was not publicly announced in the Thai court system.
Since 2021, some netizens in China have sent photos claiming that Luckin Coffee has opened a store in Thailand. Subsequently, Luckin Coffee issued a statement on August 9, 2022 to refute the rumors, calling the former a counterfeit store. On social media photos, the reporter saw counterfeit stores using Luckin's English name and turning the deer head of the logo to the other side.
It is worth noting that in recent years, Luckin has also accelerated its plans to expand overseas. At the recently held third quarter performance meeting, Luckin's management revealed that as of September 30, the total number of company stores reached 13273, with a net increase of 2437 new stores opened in a single quarter, including 11 stores in Singapore.
Although Guo Jinyi, Chairman and CEO of Luckin Coffee, revealed at the performance meeting that Luckin Coffee will continue to expand its overseas market in the future, from the content of his speech afterwards, Luckin Coffee still hopes to increase investment in the Chinese market and further expand its leading advantage. On the same day, Guo Jinyi stated that as competition in the Chinese coffee market intensifies, Luckin Coffee will continue to increase the number of stores in high-end cities, and accelerate the expansion of lower tier markets through a joint venture model to further expand market share.