What the Saturnbird Instant Coffee Ruling Means for Brands

Saturnbird spent 20 months suing the brand Qicai Zhimi over packaging that resembled its small-cup instant coffee. The Hangzhou Intermediate People's Court ruled it constituted unfair competition, ordering compensation of 1.73 million yuan and requiring the infringing products to stop being produced and sold. Qicai Zhimi also used search terms such as same style as Saturnbird to mislead buyers.

Saturnbird rose to popularity through its ultra-instant coffee and mini coffee cup design, and the packaging was widely imitated. The case highlights how difficult IP protection is in food, where the line between reference and plagiarism stays blurry. Original brands can lean on copyright, patent rights, exclusive trademark rights, and the Anti-Unfair Competition Law, as seen in other disputes over similar brand names.

For professional coffee knowledge exchange and more coffee bean information, please follow Coffee Workshop (WeChat public account: cafe_style); for more specialty coffee beans, please add the personal WeChat of Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee), WeChat ID: qjcoffeex. Recently, the case in which Saturnbird spent 20 months suing "Qicai Zhimi" for unauthorized use of an appearance similar to its small-cup instant coffee has reached a result. The Hangzhou Intermediate People's Court ruled that it constituted unfair competition, ordered compensation of 1.73 million yuan, and required the infringing products to stop being produced and sold. Saturnbird became popular thanks to its ultra-instant coffee and mini coffee cup design. Its packaging sparked a DIY craze and swept social media, and because of this it was frequently imitated and even copied. In this case, "Qicai Zhimi" not only had highly similar style, packaging, and promotional images, but also used search terms such as "same style as Saturnbird" to mislead consumers. The case lasted nearly two years, highlighting the current situation in the food industry where IP rights protection is difficult and the boundary between reference and plagiarism is blurry. The article combines cases such as Chayan Yuese suing Chayan Guanse to discuss how original brands can protect their rights and interests through copyright, patent rights, exclusive trademark rights, and the Anti-Unfair Competition Law.

For professional coffee knowledge exchange, and for more coffee bean information, please follow Coffee Workshop (WeChat public account: cafe_style)

For more specialty coffee beans, please add the personal WeChat of Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee), WeChat ID: qjcoffeex

According to recent reports by domestic media, Saturnbird spent 20 months suing a coffee brand called "Qicai Zhimi" on the grounds that the brand had unauthorizedly adopted an appearance similar to Saturnbird's small-cup instant coffee, constituting unfair competition.

In the end, the Hangzhou Intermediate People's Court in Zhejiang Province ruled that the brand side of "Qicai Zhimi" should compensate Saturnbird a total of 1.73 million yuan for economic losses and reasonable expenses, and also required it to stop producing and selling the infringing products.

Many consumers first came to know Saturnbird precisely because they were attracted by its product design—ultra-instant coffee plus minimalist packaging, combined with the shape of a mini coffee cup and the visual impact brought by color. When the product was first launched, it quickly won the favor of young consumer groups.

Because the coffee packaging has a novel shape and uses environmentally friendly materials, it carries the appeal of "Come on! Keep me for DIY." Many consumers keep the packaging for secondary creation, turning it into small potted plants, small pendants, and various other decorations, and post them on major social platforms, which in turn led more young users to start paying attention to this brand.

After going on the market, Saturnbird quickly became popular on social media thanks to its extremely high "photo-readiness," and afterward more and more coffee brands launched product packaging with a similar style. In recent years, discussion, analysis, imitation, and even copying of the small-cup shape within the industry have never stopped.

Since there are so many brands on the market with similar product designs, why did Saturnbird specifically sue a brand with low recognition? The reason is that this has already gone beyond the scope of reference.

From the infringement evidence Saturnbird provided to the media, the Qicai Zhimi brand showed a high degree of similarity to Saturnbird's products in product style, packaging design, promotional images, and content.

The brand also added keywords such as "same style as Saturnbird" to its product search terms, so that when users searched for Saturnbird they could also see its products. Combined with the similar style and product appearance, this easily conveyed misleading information to consumers and caused confusion.

Therefore, starting from December 29, 2020, Saturnbird launched litigation to defend its rights against Qicai Zhimi, and it was not until September 2 this year that the case reached a final judgment.

Because the law does not clearly define plagiarism and reference/imitation, when many brands' original products encounter similar products launched by other brands, they often choose to give up due to the long rights-protection cycle and high costs. The awareness and atmosphere of intellectual property protection in the food industry are also relatively weak.

The cost of reference is low and the traffic is large, so following the popular product designs of major brands has become a way for many small brands to get started. Whether searching for "coffee beans" or "instant coffee"... brands all have some similarity in packaging layout and design, and the phenomenon of product "assimilation" in the industry is also becoming increasingly serious.

Directly copying the main elements is called plagiarism; analyzing the main elements and then flexibly using the key points among them is called reference. Because such phenomena are increasing, people's definition of plagiarism and reference is becoming blurrier and blurrier, and the path of rights protection for creators is therefore becoming harder and harder.

Therefore, when a design is truly 100% original, what the designer needs to do is apply for copyright, patent rights, or exclusive trademark rights for the design, and complete this work before putting it into production and use, so that when needed, rights can be defended directly on the basis of intellectual property.

If these rights are absent, and the product promotion of other brands would indeed cause consumer confusion, then rights can be defended according to the provisions on "counterfeiting and confusion" in the Anti-Unfair Competition Law.

There have been similar cases before, such as the case at the end of last year that trended on social media in which Chayan Yuese sued Chayan Guanse.

In the face of plagiarism and unfair competition, creators or brands should not "sit and wait for doom," because the more imitation products there are, the more the original product's own reputation and consumers' judgment of the brand's product quality will be affected.

Defending rights is a necessary means of protecting one's own rights and interests, and it is also a promise and guarantee to supporters of originality and to consumers.

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

The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.