By Nitika Sinha and Chirag Tuteja
What’s The Trend?
150,000 US Dollars is what one Labubu was sold for recently in an auction in Beijing. So how does Pop Mart manage to sell weirdly appearing toys for such a high price? The answer is their genius marketing strategy, and more importantly the way they protect it.
Pop Mart relies on a strategy many high fashion brands also employ, maintaining scarcity. They keep the supply of Labubu’s low using strategies like limited time drops and keeping a large percentage of manufactured stock out of circulation. This in turn ensures that demand for a Labubu always stays high.
The Labubu doll has now become a popular toy even amongst the Bollywood with several celebrities spotted incorporating it into their style. Urvashi Rautela, Ananya Panday, Sharvari Wagh, and Pashmina Roshan are among the celebrities who have been seen with the toy, either as a bag charm or as part of their overall look. This indeed is adding the excitement amongst the community as well as adding collectors sharing their thrill of Labubu unboxing experience.
Controlling Counterfeiting Threats Flowing in with Popularity
But with this also comes an inherent risk, which is that this marketing strategy leaves a large opening for counterfeits and duplicates, who can create large quantities and sell them at much lesser prices. To effectively battle this issue Pop Mart built a strategic legal architecture around Labubu using trademarks, copyrights and design rights together.
Interestingly, Pop Mart only filed for a trademark over Labubu in 2024 in the UK, after it went viral online and jumped demand, almost 9 years after the brand was established. While this worked for Pop Mart who secured a trademark, it was quite a quite a risky move as unauthorized third parties could have in that time filed for the name too, which would at the very least slow down the trademark process. Pop Mart successfully acquired trademarks over the name Labubu (word mark) and the way the Labubu is stylized (device mark). Labubu was created by the artist Kasing Lung, who’s illustrations, 2D sketches and stories are protected by copyright law. This protection prevents any unauthorized reproduction of Labubu. Finally, industrial design laws shield the 3D design and shape of the toy, protecting it’s aesthetic look. Essentially, copyright protects the Labubu and storyboards, trademark protects the Labubu name and brand, and design rights protect the product itself including its looks and shape. This infrastructure of IP rights eliminates grey areas, making sure Labubu can shut down counterfeiters legally and protect itself from dupes.
Pop Mart also put together a system to enforce these IP rights. It works on three fronts, mainly recording with customs, E-Commerce takedowns and digital monitoring. Pop Mart recorded the Labubu trademark in China and EU customs, allowing China to successfully seize over 20,000 Labubu counterfeits. Lababu is a protected trademark, which allows them to access and use brand protection programs in E-Commerce platforms. These brand protection programs help Pop Mart monitor efficiently for counterfeits, report counterfeits faster and put quality and brand checks into place. Pop Mart also works with IP search teams and legal teams to monitor social media and platforms for counterfeiters or copyright infringers.
Pop Mart established its IP strategy and effectiveness in controlling the narrative over a short period of time. In 2024, a Chinese court awarded Pop Mart damages worth around 1300 US dollars against a Chinese seller which was creating unauthorized Labubu 3D printings. This established that copyright laws protected not only the sketches and designs, but also the 3D design and aesthetic appearances in China. This year Pop Mart also sent out legal notices to various Singaporean companies like bubble ta shops, arcades, toy shops, cafes that were using the Labubu designs in their products. This showed that copyright and trademark laws extended beyond just the core products. Pop Mart also in a stroke of preemptive genius registered for the trademark for the name Lafufu, to halt deceptive counterfeiters who were using similar names to escape the Labubu trademark.
Layering of IP’s for Umbrella Protection : An Example to Abide By
India itself is rich with impressionable intellectual properties. Cartoons like Chota Bheem, Motu Patlu are recognizable throughout India, characters like the Amul mascot and the Parle-G girl helped establish brands.
| S. No | Trademark | Classes |
| 1. |  |
1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 29, 31, 32, 33, 34, 36, 37, 39, 40, 43, 44, 45.
|
| 2. |  |
28 |
However, there are a few gaps when it comes to holistic IPR protections and applying them in India. Section 15 of the Copyright Act renders a copyright void if the work is also registered under the Design Act or if it can be registered under the Design Act and has been reproduced more than 50 times. This makes it complex for artists and designers to protect their work if they license it for commercial purposes, as even if the original intent was for copyright, licensing it for commercial purposes later is difficult navigating. Additionally, the protection offered under the Design Act is narrower.
Pop Mart addressed these issues by layering their IP rights, i.e., by filing for a design right, acquiring the copyright license from its creator, acquiring a trademark for its logo and name to ensure that they were all covered on all levels even if the copyright was ineligible. Pop Mart has successfully managed to create an airtight system that protects Labubu as a brand persona holistically.
Siddhant Roy, Legal Intern at S.S.Rana & Co. has assisted in the research of this article.
[2] https://labubu-uk.com/?srsltid=AfmBOoocAKPrvwhv3Q0Xvjnst7JekWvTLlcRoJ14kzmJLMuYthm_868y