CPB Infringed Upon. Shiseido China Sues Four Beauty Companies

Focusing on core high-end skincare business, Shiseido is "striking hard" in the Chinese market to maintain a healthy and orderly market environment.

At the same time that Clé de Peau Beauté (CPB) was excelling in the Chinese market, the "copycat” problem also followed, and Shiseido China started to take actions for rights protection.

Recently, the Cosmetics Business Online (CBO) reporters exclusively learned from Shiseido China that in December of last year Shiseido China found through investigation that the Beloved Queen products infringed on three of the appearance design patent rights of Clé de Peau Beauté (CPB), a high-end brand of Shiseido Group. Beloved Queen products are manufactured by Zhejiang Mei Ren Ji (Merrige) Health Science & Technology Group Co., Ltd., Zhejiang Mei Mei Yu Gong Cosmetics Science & Technology Co., Ltd., Suzhou Yuan Mei Science & Technology Co., Ltd., and promoted and sold by Nanjing Mei Yu Culture Creative Co., Ltd.

In response Shiseido China filed a lawsuit against the above four companies with the Hangzhou Intermediate People's Court.

Shiseido China Filed Lawsuit Against the Four Companiesthat Infringed on CPB’s Appearance Design Patent Rights

In 2018 Shiseido China applied for three appearance design patents from the China National Intellectual Property Administration and obtained the corresponding patent rights. The three patents are currently legal and valid. The three appearance design patents are for cosmetic bottles. The use of the design product is for cosmetic bottles, the design main point is the shape of the product, and the graphic that can best indicate the design focus is a three-dimensional drawing.

In March 2021 Beloved Queen released 6 products which are highly similarin appearance to CPB star products. The 6 Beloved Queen products include miracle golden eye cream, miracle golden luxe lifting elixir cream, miracle golden activating essential toner, miracle golden revitalize nourishing emulsion,miracle golden nourishing tone up cream and miracle golden firming moisturizing serum.

△Products involved in the case, Beloved Queenofficial website

Shiseido China said that the above four companies maliciously infringed on CPB while knowing that CPB is a high-end brand, had a high reputation and was universally recognized by the market. The scale of infringement of the four companies is large, and the profit from the infringement is large. The four companies misled consumers and infringed on the interests of consumers and brand. 

The investigation found that Zhejiang Mei Ren Ji (Merrige) Health Science & Technology Group Co., Ltd. and Zhejiang Mei Mei Yu Gong Cosmetics Science & Technology Co., Ltd. publicity promoted the infringing produucts involved in the case and developed distributors. Zhejiang Mei Mei Yu Gong Cosmetics Science & Technology Co., Ltd. entrusted Suzhou Yuan Mei Science & Technology Co., Ltd. to manufacture the infringing products. Nanjing Mei Yu Culture Creative Co., Ltd. sold the infringing products through the WeChat Mini Program "Super Good Broadcast".The distributors developed by Zhejiang Mei Ren Ji (Merrige) Health Science & Technology Group Co., Ltd. and Zhejiang Mei Mei Yu Gong Cosmetics Science & Technology Co., Ltd. sold the infringing products offline.

In its complaint filed with the court, Shiseido China pointed out that when the defendant's new products were released, some consumers commented on the plagiarism from the plaintiff CPB series on Little Red Book, and the other party knowingly committed it, which was a malicious infringement. The other party simultaneously copied six CPB products and infringed 3 patent rights. After the enforcement of the law by the Jinhua Intellectual Property Administration, the other party still held a live streaming product selling competition event and awarded prizes, which was obviously malicious. The other party claims to have developed over 10,000 distributors, and the aggravation of the case is serious. The other party claims that the first quarter revenue of the infringing products involved in the case was 300 million yuan, and the aggravation of the case is serious. The other party claims to have reached a cooperation of hundreds of millions of yuan with the two major head media companies, and the aggravation of the case is serious. The scale of the infringement by the other party is huge, and it is considered plagiarism by many consumers, which seriously damages the legitimate rights and interests of consumers and the reputation of the Shiseido company brands.

△6 products involved in the case, photo providedby Shiseido China

Shiseido China demanded that the court order the four enterprises suspected of infringement to:

- Immediately stop infringing on the appearance design patent rights of the three    

 patents owned by Shiseido China;

- Stop manufacturing, selling, and promising sales;

- Recall and destroy infringing products;

- Stop publicizing and other illegal infringements;

- The four defendants to jointly compensate the plaintiffs for economic losses;  and  publish announcement to eliminate the impact;

- Four defendants to jointly bear the litigation costs of the case.

The Products Involved in the Case Are Still on the Market for Sale,

Brand Claims"First Quarter Revenue of 300 Million Yuan"

According to information on qcc.com, the parent company of the Beloved Queen brand was established in January 2021, and the company's legal person is also the majority shareholder of another major WeChat-business brand "Mei Ren Ji (Merrige)". It is worth mentioning that this company, which has only been established for one year, in addition to been sued by Shiseido China for appearance infringement (several cosmetic products), also sells beauty instruments, and its products are suspected to have been exaggerated by their advertising language.

Beloved Queen Brand WeChat public account in the "brand story" section introduced: “Yu Mei Holding Group has a number of brands such as Mei Mei Yu Gong, and Mei Ren Ji (Merrige), with more than 700,000 registered distributors, and more than 2,000 offline experience centers all over China, Europe, the Americas, Southeast Asia, etc.Zhejiang Mei Mei Yu Gong Cosmetics Science & Technology Co., Ltd. belongs to Zhejiang Yu Mei Holding Group. It is a daily chemical enterprise that does R & D, production and sales, and currently has over 10,000 distributors throughout the country and urban experience centers throughout the country’s many provinces.”

Beloved Queen also announced that the brand has signed a strategic cooperation of hundreds of millions of yuan with the two major fashion authority media, ELLE and Harper's Bazaar. Three major video media and three major TV media: Youku, Tencent Video, iQiyi, Guangdong Jingshi, Zhejiang Qianjiang, Lifestyle and other all-media communications, as well as 30 major media companies, huanqiu.com, china.com reported the Beloved Queen brand conference.

On the Little Red Book Beloved Queen posted a number of notes related to the infringing products involved in the case. Among them, for "The New Life of the Shining Queen, SANYA Brand Conference" March 30, 2021 note, there are several comments such as "The designer copied CPB?”,  “So it’s plagiarism”, “it’s a strong brand, but does same design as an internationally renowned brand.” Beloved Queen responded, "CPB is a big predecessor in the skincare industry, and we certainly have a lot to learn... We apologize for the misconception.” As of now it has been deleted.

On June 1, 2021 Zhejiang Mei Mei Yu Gong Cosmetics Science & Technology Co., Ltd. WeChat's product (involved in the case) brochure showed that Beloved Queen's revenue for the first quarter of 2021 was 300 million yuan.

On September 16, 2021, at the request of Shiseido China, the Jinhua Municipal Intellectual Property Administration filed a case against Zhejiang Mei Mei Yu Gong Cosmetics Science & Technology Co., Ltd. for patent infringement. The Jinhua Municipal Intellectual Property Administration carried out law enforcement actions against the warehouse, and counted and registered the suspected infringing products in the warehouse. The number of registered products involved in the case was 12,686 bottles/sets, and the value of the goods was converted according to selling price to more than 8 million yuan. According to the investigation, Yu Mei Group opened a flagship store in Yuyao to display and sell the products suspected of infringement.

As of the press release Beloved Queen's parent company, Zhejiang Mei Mei Yu Gong Cosmetics Science & Technology Co., Ltd., has not stopped the promotion and sale of this series of products.

The Copycat of Big Brands.

The ‘Touch Porcelain (Racketeering)’ Marketing.

CPB is Not the OnlyOne That’s Hurt.

From Internet celebrity Zhang Dayi "trying to create cheaper version" of CPB, to Beloved Queen appearance infringement of CPB, high-end beauty brands being copied and ‘Touch Porcelain (Racketeering)’ marketing are not new things.

In recent years various provinces have been cracking down on counterfeit and inferior cosmetics illegal and criminal cases. High-end beauty brands have become the main target of criminals, and even have involved hundreds of millions of yuan in some large cases. On the other hand, there are also brands publicly plagiarizing big brands’ product appearance and packaging, in WeChat-business, e-commerce and other channels to try to "be real with fake products".

“Using ‘Touch Porcelain (Racketeering)’ marketing strategy without a bottom line will ultimately cost consumers' enthusiasm and value recognition of original domestic cosmetics brands." An industry insider said. "GICHANCY’s attempt to create their version of Guerlain and novo coping La Mer... Although in recent years domestic cosmetics brands have been recognized and accepted by Chinese consumers, but in the field of skin care, local consumers still reserve filters for foreign high-end beauty brands."

At present in the Chinese market, even affected by the pandemic, the sales growth rate of high-end beauty is still higher than that of the market, which has led to the continuous performance improvements of giant groups.

According to Shiseido Group's 2021 financial report, Shiseido's sales in the Chinese market were 274.7 billion Japan yen (about 15.1 billion RMB), an increase of 16.5% year over year, accounting for 26.6% of the total sales of the global business, and making it the largest overseas market after the Japanese market. Shiseido high-end brands maintained rapid growth, and CPB increased by 21% year over year.

Not only Shiseido Group, but also many international beauty companies have emphasized the important contribution of high-end cosmetics to company revenue growth in financial reports, and continue to be optimistic about the development of China's high-end beauty market.

"Nowadays, in the context of copycats and fakes, consumers who are unaware or have not yet been reached by the real brands can easily rely on copycats and fake products." Over time, this kind of violation not only harms the interests of brands and consumers.  After the formation of a 'gray industrial chain', under the stricter enforcement of brand rights protection, local beauty will receive more critical reviews by consumers, so that local brands that work hard to create original design will also be affected.” The above-mentioned person said.

The launching of a beauty product requires the unremitting efforts of many people and links, such as research and development, design, etc., and it is also the brand's painstaking work. Whether it is a brand, a sales channel or a consumer, it is reasonable to say no to infringement and safeguard the legitimate rights and interests.