The Labubu, the Lafufu, and Intellectual Property Wars

If you haven't heard about the Labubu yet, you must be very disconnected. Aside from being a recent craze among youth and the trendy, they've appeared in TV shows, in various unsanctioned forms, and in the news. Most of us have heard about the Labubu and their counterfeit counterparts, frequently known as "Lafufu".

For those of you who somehow have managed to remain oblivious, first, let me congratulate you on your commitment to that. Second, let me introduce you to what I've started thinking of as the latest Beanie Baby (because that was my childhood's out-of-control craze). These plush toys come in all sizes and are collectively known as "The Monsters". They embody the concept of grotesque-cute, having cute cuddly animal bodies, chubby cheeks, and aggressively lowered eyebrows and (exactly 9) bared, pointed teeth. 

A soon-to-be-released Labubu, selling for $299.99. Image taken from Pop Mart website.

Now, I am not writing this post because it struck me as a good idea or piqued my IP interests like usual, but because I was asked a specific question regarding the Labubu/Lafufu relationship by a friend of mine. And, as always, something simple quickly became complex, because IP is like that. 

Let's start with paraphrasing her question. She wanted to know why there were so many fake Labubus on the market, and why their manufacturer didn't secure exclusive rights via design patent. [I'd like to briefly redirect things to point out that I have managed to teach people around me so much about IP! There's no way she would have been aware of design patents and their purpose if I hadn't talked about them enough.] She also wondered how it was possible for some counterfeits to be so faithful to the original product as to be almost impossible to differentiate. After all, who hasn't, over the years, seen a dupe of  designer brand with some kind of misspelling or inverted logo to try to dodge infringement? Yet some Lafufu might as well be made in the same factory by the same people, they are so accurate. 

[Side note: I recognize it is possible some are stolen from authorized factories and sold off-brand, I am not going to focus on that.]

My friend's question has multiple answers, the first of which is fairly easy. One of the aspects of Labubus that makes them so collectible are the many different varieties, some of which are rare, and must be bought "blind" in concealed packaging. This drives the desire to buy more, enhancing the feeling rarity and specialty when found. It's strategic marketing but makes a design patents almost impossible. Because these differences are in appearance, and design patents protect specific appearances, each Labubu would need its own separate patent (at least in the US). Since there are varieties are multitudinous, and with new versions introduced and potentially released for a limited time, pursuing design patents for the full range would be wasteful. The cost, in both time and money, would outweigh the benefits. ROI: probably negative.

The second answer, and at a sort of intermediate level, is their international marketing. A design patent can only be enforced in the jurisdiction where it was issued. So not only would they need many different iterations to protect all the different designs, they would also need to pursue them across many patent offices. No real global patenting office exists; just treaties to help ease the process of transferring applications from one granting body to another.

At this point, if you're thinking about the possibility of some kind of trademark on an international scale, or perhaps trade dress for the Labubu, you'd be closer to a potential answer--if the company Pop Mart (owners of Labubu) wanted to represent their whole brand with the Labubu or The Monsters. As best as I could find, they have many registered marks in many jurisdictions, including "The Monsters" and "Labubu", but that mostly just protects them against other entities identifying the source of the sales as Pop Mart or their Labubu. Their attempts at using the trademarks haven't been effective. 

A logo owned by Pop Mart, found on WIPO

This actually brings us close to the third answer of why there are so many Lafufus of varying quality and correctness. Enforcing a brand on a global scale is challenging at the best of times, but when you have a fast-selling sensation it is even harder, because counterfeits pop up and disappear as quickly as the real merch. And if they don't have the right kind of claim attached to their Lafufu, it might not quite be infringement. 

More than that, the company Pop Mart and the Labubu originate in China. And China is not known for being terribly strict enforcers of IP rights holders. In fact, you wouldn't be blamed for thinking that China is one of the top sources of fraudulent, infringing goods sold worldwide. The government does not have a good reputation for protecting foreign IP holder rights in China, or for staunching the flow of fake goods from their country into others. 

Since they might even have a chunk of their national income derived from these fakes, trying to suddenly enforce the IP rights of a massive sensation might be difficult. Not that the government isn't trying; they are, in fact, attempting to do their best to control it. 

Beyond that, many consumers, quite frankly, don't care if they are buying Lafufus. They know they're fakes and still purchase them. Some revel in the weirdness of the fakes and the variations they present on the original. That makes it even harder to stop their production, when the demand for a fake might justify the risks of setting up a more permanent operation.

Yet another complication? I've read that two of the best sources for a Lafufu are Shein and Alibaba, which are Chinese-owned online sales companies. They can't enforce Labubu IP within their own borders.

It extends beyond that, though. These are just the three most obvious and accessible answers for why the Lafufus seem to run unchecked.  

 

Meanwhile... I can only imagine the schadenfreude certain IP enforcers are feeling as China's IP enforcement struggles to crack down on counterfeits and their circulation.  

Happy Birthday, Patented

Well, not literally. That's not patentable. But it's been far too long since my last post, and today is my birthday, so I thought it would be a good day for a themed post.

Happy birthday, to me.

So I of course performed a birthday cake-focused patent search. Let's take a look at a few of what I feel are the most interesting, most fun, or most notable inventions.

First up, US 11,808,276: Systems, method, and apparatus for blowing out birthday candles. This deserves the top spot not because it is very inventive, unusual, or even very useful. No, it earns that honor because someone managed to write a patent that convinced the USPTO to issue a new patent in 2023 for what is essentially a portable fan. I suspect this was born of someone's horror that the birthday girl gets to blow her germs all over a cake. Now, with this little fan, you can manually power, via spring (no battery or other electric mechanism seems to be included), a slightly cleaner blast of air. Hopefully no one inhaled and exhaled that particular bit of atmosphere.

Next is US 2,786,345, the Candle holder for birthday cakes, which are very fancy looking. I grew up in a family and era when most people just jabbed candles directly into a cake. Very occasionally, someone would use cheap plastic candle holders. But these are fit for an occasion, each capable of supporting multiple candles. If anyone would like to give me a belated gift, and also has a knack for finding potentially non-existent novelty items, this is perfect. 

These are nice.

US 7,931,402, Inflatable gift wrap in the shape of a cake, takes third. My search query [birthday NEAR (cake OR candle)] was intentionally geared towards the birthday cake tradition, so I was pleasantly surprised to find this one in the mix. Apparently the "icing" decorations are meant to be interchangeable, so it can serve many purposes and events. I can get behind a fun, reusable wrapping. Lately I've found myself extremely disappointed that we continue to use and immediately dispose of paper on gifts. Heck yeah, Daniel Oas! 

Neat!

This is me, meaning I'll always include a plant whenever possible. US PP16,158 comes in fourth, with xHeucherella plant named 'Birthday Cake'. Now, it's unfortunate, but the only color photo I could find was truly awful, so we can't get a good idea of its appearance. Nonetheless, from descriptions, it sounds delicious (!) with chocolate colored ruffled leaves and creamy white flowers like candles. 

This is a terrible photo and I'm sorry

Honorable mention goes to US 10,136,659, Chocolate wax composition for candles. And yes, it is edible. I love chocolate, I love cake, so why not have my cake and eat the candles too?

Bluebells and Blue Bell

In a very exciting event for me, my Texas bluebells (Eustoma exaltatum) have bloomed! These striking flowers were raised from seed over the past year. It was challenging, and the number of adult flowering plants I have today is painfully fewer than the number of seedlings initially germinated. 

Please do not visit my yard to see this flower without an invitation, I won't be happy

Fortunately, I planted several Texas bluebells in the Fondren Rain Garden, so anyone can enjoy their beauty. 

These two spent blooms are in the rain garden; there will be more soon!

Why the excitement? Aside from the difficulty of raising them, the Texas bluebell was once an iconic flower of this region. However, it was so beautiful, that people picked enough of the flowers to nearly wipe them out. Today, it is not often seen in the wild, and you are more likely to find a cultivar or close relation for sale. Fortunately a few people recognized the need to collect and preserve some specimens, and the original wild-type plant is making its way into native gardens; maybe one day it will again grow wild in abundance. 

The Texas bluebell is also notable because it is the namesake of our regional ice cream brand, Blue Bell!  It was once so well-known it could be considered a symbol of the region. Now there are probably more people familiar with the ice cream brand than the plant.

Which brings us to the real topic of the post: Blue Bell IP. After all, it's a good excuse to look at some delicious trademarks and patents.

Despite being an ice cream (and also butter) manufacturer for nearly a century, Blue Bell Creameries owns only two patents. Both are designs for "ice cream stations", which appears to be not a whole ice cream scoop store, but rather just a stand.

The front page of D293,747

It isn't clear if this is meant to be indoors or out, or if it should be for selling just Blue Bell ice cream. Distinguishing characteristics of the two are also not immediately apparent. (Design patents are not very detailed.) Have you ever seen one of these ice cream stations? Check out US D293,748 and US D293,747 at the links. 

It's definitely for serving Blue Bell ice cream, but they make nothing else clear

On the other hand, Blue Bell owns several registered marks, many no longer active. Let's look at a few of the more iconic and recognizable entries.

The milkmaid and cow silhouette is carved into every Texan's brain, I think. There's more than one iteration registered, but here's a link to the TSDR entry for no. 1144445, issued in 1980.  

An encircled version, registered 1985, no. 1321048

The plain wordmark for Blue Bell, no. 972517, was registered in 1973. I think that's around when they were big enough to actually need a federal mark, rather than just Texas state or common law. See all of its information at the TSDR here.

The specific font was registered in 2023, no. 7106559

Blue Bell also takes some of its flavors very seriously. For example, Moo-llennium Crunch. I recall this flavor's introduction. Its registration was a little late in 2002, possibly because they didn't plan ahead and submitted the application in November 2000. Visit the specimen images and more from the TSDR. 

This is rough, I'm really craving ice cream now. Good thing I planned to visit the grocery store after work! For any Fondren staff readers, keep an eye out for a relevant announcement this week. You might be in luck, if you're a Blue Bell fan...

AI May Actually Work Now

If you're unfamiliar with my previous posts on generative AI--in particular ChatGPT and other similar LLMs--now may be a good time to do a quick review.

For those of you who read them before, allow me to make an exciting announcement: Generative AI might actually work now. That's right, it does what I asked. I am just as shocked as you.

After hearing from my tattoo artist about the Grok app, and its ability to search, I was skeptical. After all, most of these AI models that were not created specifically for searching are just garbage at it! And I had heard nothing even remotely positive about Grok previously. But I put on my librarian hat and did the right thing: I downloaded the app, signed in with my work Google account, and did a little testing.

Holy artificial dialogue. 

I was impressed! And I didn't want to be, either. However, I can recognize when something can provide a good answer. The first question I'll skim over--it was nothing more than I've been able to glean from other models, if among the better responses. It was the second question that caused the reaction.

From the start, I have asked all of the models to find the most recent patents granted to Rice University. Without fail, they have all given me a lot of bad answers, ranging from "I can't" to "here's a list of random patents and patent applications that may or may not be recent". Those that tell me it's "hard" to say what is most recent are just annoying, because patents are granted on specific dates. 

It explains it methodology and sources in its response, not requiring any extra clicks or selections

I ran this question on March 31st without having completed my monthly patent search for anything newly granted to Rice, so I couldn't immediately judge the accuracy of the results. But I do know quite a lot about Rice patents, and the two patents it listed took me by surprise. First, the most recent patent had what looked like a feasible patent number (12,251,449) and was granted to Rice and two other institutions that are frequent collaborators. The first inventor name listed is one I'm familiar with because he is on a lot of Rice patents, and the title of the patent matched his area of research. This was all promising.

All plausible, likely information at first glance

Furthermore, it listed a second patent that was granted near the end of  February, which I fully recognized as completely accurate (that one I had uploaded to the R3 repository). This additional patent made me think the first was that much more likely to be accurate.

Information I already knew was accurate

So I hopped on Patent Public Search, and verified. Sure enough, Grok got it right. 

Not only that, Grok listed quite a few details and sources used. This is also something I appreciate as a librarian and something I remind everyone in my generative AI classes to look for. 

Me shoutout! Love seeing that listed

Here's the bad news, though. It required Grok nearly a minute and 88 sources to find two patents.

This is not a request that requires 88 sources

Me? About 2 seconds and one source. Why? Because I am capable of real reasoning and actual strategic searching, with my very real intelligence.

So, no, Grok isn't going to replace me. Or us. It's just getting that tiny bit much better. Insert your appropriate emotion here: relief that you can stay employed, or disappointment that you still need to work.

Keep Your Drink Warm with some IP

You know what I really appreciate? Travel coffee/tea/whatever mugs that keep my beverage hot for hours. And not just a couple, but for 5 or so. Up until recently, I'd been using the same one for well over a decade because it was so incredibly effective. Unfortunately, it finally broke, and I was forced to use a newer version of the same container--only to find that it's not nearly as good! What happened?

I know for a fact that my old travel mug had multiple patents (this is me, of course I looked). Why abandon them? Ok, aside from the fact that given the age of my tumbler, they had likely passed into public domain (remember, patents have specific time limits). But that doesn't mean they couldn't continue to use the same design.

In celebration of the life of the coffee mug I loved and lost, and in hopes that the new one I bought for my husband's birthday is better--despite being the same brand--let us look at some Contigo (owned by Ignite USA) coffee tumbler lid patents. 

Please pay no mind to the table chaos in the background

There are three listed on the base of my current tumbler: 7,546,933, 7,997,442, and D564,841. Without looking them up, I can tell you immediately that these are not at all new and have quite likely passed into public domain. Since it also claims patent pending, I must assume newer tech is also at work. Let's look for the newer ones. Also, both of the utility patents are continuations within the same family and don't appear to be the tech behind the particular mug they're printed on, which makes them even less interesting for this entry. 

Also, I'm going to stick to utility patents, because that would be more relevant to the ability to keep my coffee warm for long periods. 

Contigo/Ignite USA haven't been very active lately when it comes to patents, as it turns out. There is nothing more recent than 2020--either granted or in application phase. This is a little disappointing, but perhaps their business plan has its reasons.

Let's look at US 10,336,513 Lid Having a Pre-venting Lid Lever and a Seal Arm Assembly. It looks moderately similar to what I have, but not quite the same. I think it's a different model; perhaps it is more effective. Maybe I should buy more tumblers and find out!

A diagram of the lid assembly from US 10,336,513

Next up is US 10,455,959 Portable Beverage Container with a Robust and Easily Cleanable Seal Mechanism. It's nothing like the coffee tumblers I know--it looks more like it is intended for chilled beverages, with the straw-like opening.

This image makes the lid look impossibly complicated

Finally, we have US 10,898,017 No-Spill Drinking Container, that again looks more like it is for a chilled beverage, similar to the above. In fact, they might be for the same whole bottle, just different parts.

It is hard to spill when drinking with a straw

 

How disappointing! None of these are for my coffee mug and none of them explain why the newer version is less effective. Perhaps more research of other patents and other patent office databases would be required.