00:00Well, we're going to play Spot the Difference today, Grave.
00:03Take a look at these two pictures out there here, two logos.
00:07You see the differences, similarities?
00:09Well, Louis Vuitton sure does.
00:11They're in a court in China as well,
00:13which has reportedly awarded the French luxury brand
00:16$1.5 million for trademark infringement
00:20by Chinese milk tea chain Molly T.
00:23All right, let's bring in Min Min Lo, our China correspondent.
00:25She's been following the story.
00:28Explain what's been going on, Min Min.
00:30Yeah, it's Molly T versus Louis Vuitton,
00:33who's going to win this legal battle.
00:36And Louis Vuitton has won the first round,
00:38but Molly T is saying it's going to appeal against that decision.
00:42So basically, Louis Vuitton has filed a lawsuit against Molly T.
00:47And a local court in Jiangsu province,
00:49which is just west of Shanghai,
00:51has ruled in favor of Louis Vuitton
00:53and saying that Molly T has infringed on
00:55seven of these trademarked four-petaled flower graphics.
01:00And the question here is whether or not Molly T acted in bad faith,
01:04because it turns out that Molly T had applied
01:07for several trademark applications
01:10of various of these four-petaled flower motifs,
01:14and none of them got approved,
01:16except for one that contains the Chinese characters of Molly T,
01:19which says Molly Nai Bai.
01:22And yet, why did the company go ahead to use this logo?
01:25So now the company has to pay LV 10 million yuan in economic damages,
01:30as well as 300,000 yuan for its legal fees.
01:34And on top of that,
01:35it has some 2,000 stores in China,
01:38and they all have to stop using this logo.
01:40So it's a pretty big deal for the company.
01:42And what's the temperature in social media here?
01:46Yeah, this is getting very heavily discussed.
01:48I mean, even within our team,
01:49the opinion was pretty split,
01:51because some people are saying that,
01:53look, this logo as a standalone
01:55without multiple symbols put together in a motif,
01:57it doesn't necessarily remind you of LV+.
02:00The color scheme, the product category
02:03is just completely different.
02:04So one person on Chinese social media, Weibo,
02:06is saying, you know, this looks really familiar.
02:09It looks like the pattern of the grill on my windows of my old house.
02:13And I can just imagine it, right?
02:15It's a very sort of generic sort of pattern you would see in old housing.
02:19But by far, what is getting a lot of likes and comments on Chinese social media
02:23is this idea that this motif is actually something that originated from ancient China,
02:28more than 1,000 years old,
02:29that is rooted in the Buddhist tradition,
02:31heavily associated with the Ming and Tang dynasty.
02:34So here you can see someone saying,
02:35who exactly is the originator here?
02:38How can LV copy ancient Chinese patterns
02:41and then turn around and sue a Chinese company?
02:43And somebody else is saying,
02:44I'm going to buy a cup of molly tea every day just to support them,
02:47because you know what?
02:49LV is just taking advantage of the fact that
02:51our ancestors didn't file for the patterns.
02:53And who is going to stand up for our Tang dynasty,
02:56bao xiang flower pattern?
02:58So bao xiang flower is what it's called.
02:59It's loosely translated to treasure image flower.
03:03And I want to show you this particular instrument.
03:05It's called a pipa.
03:06It's a four-stringed musical instrument,
03:09ancient musical instrument,
03:10more than 1,000 years old.
03:12And we can show that picture up here.
03:13It's actually given by a Tang dynasty emperor to a Japanese emperor.
03:19It's now in a museum in Nara, Japan.
03:22And it's managed by the Japan Imperial Household Agency.
03:25And doesn't this look like an LV design?
03:28But it looks like a specific brand, doesn't it?
03:30Well, and I think this is what netizens were saying, right?
03:32They were digging up pictures of these ancient, you know,
03:35musical instruments of China and saying,
03:38look, it's a similar sort of pattern that dates back to the Tang dynasty.
03:42And it's interesting, right?
03:44And then they have to take out the motif in their logo for Molly T.
03:48Now, so it's just a question mark.
03:50Yeah.
03:50And Yvonne, I've actually passed by this store many times.
03:53And it sort of has this, like, pink, pastel-colored vibe.
03:57It feels very, like, feminine and soft.
03:58It's not brown.
03:59Yeah.
04:00It doesn't make me think of LV, which has that imposing luxury look.
04:03In fact, what it made me think of is the Molly Cafe in Portmart
04:07at the theme park in Beijing.
04:08But again, these are two completely different companies.
04:11But in terms of vibe, I don't know.
04:14It feels like more like Portmart than LV.
04:16Interesting.
04:17It really doesn't look...
04:19I mean, LV doesn't come to mind when you look at that on its own.
04:23But when you put it side by side, then you kind of see it.
04:27There's just a concern about whether or not LV has endorsed
04:29or collaborated with this company.
04:30That's a concern.
04:31That would be a very strange collab, though.
04:35You know what it reminds me of, though?
04:37What?
04:38When it came up first, right?
04:40You know those IQ tests where you, you know, pattern recognition
04:44and you try to figure out what the next one is?
04:47It's very similar to what we failed at miserably.
04:52One of the comments on Weibo actually said,
04:54Isn't this the flower pattern I used to cut in my papers
04:57in my art and craft class all the time?
04:59Isn't this the flower pattern I used to cut in my papers
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