Luckin Coffee Loses Thai Trademark Case Against Local “Luckin” Operator

This is an English adaptation of a FoodBud historical article originally published on December 3, 2023.

Nandu Bay Finance reported that Luckin Coffee’s trademark-infringement case against a Thai company ended in defeat.

Court ruling in Thailand

According to multiple Thai media reports cited by Nandu Bay Finance, Thailand’s Central Intellectual Property and International Trade Court announced its final judgment on December 1 in the case brought by China’s Luckin Coffee against Thailand’s Royal 50R Group over alleged trademark and copyright infringement. The court ruled against Luckin Coffee, with immediate effect.

Royal 50R Group had registered the Luckin brand trademark in Thailand and had been opening stores there over the past two years. Luckin Coffee had previously described those locations as “counterfeit stores.” Nandu Bay Finance said it asked Luckin Coffee for details on the ruling, but as of publication Luckin had not responded.

The Thai operator

Royal 50R Group is described as a diversified Thai company involved in retail, new energy, tourism, real estate and foodservice, with Thai royal and military-government background. Its subsidiary, Thailand Luckin Coffee Co., Ltd., legally registered the Luckin brand trademark with Thailand’s Department of Business Development and had developed more than a dozen Luckin coffee shops in Thailand.

As early as January 2022, Chinese social-media users reported finding Luckin Coffee stores in Thailand. The stores were said to copy Luckin’s store design, logo style, coffee cups and carrier bags, with the deer image in the logo flipped horizontally. Images of the Thai Luckin stores also circulated on platforms such as Xiaohongshu.

In August 2022, Luckin Coffee issued a statement saying it had not opened stores in Thailand and that the Luckin-branded stores there were counterfeit. The company said the “left-facing deer” logo and direct use of the luckincoffee name had caused serious damage to the Luckin brand, and that its relevant departments had begun legal action.

A person familiar with the matter told Nandu Bay Finance that although many people regarded Thai Luckin as a “copycat” store chain, the operator had applied for the trademark in Thailand first and complied with local Thai law, allowing it to operate normally. The source said this may have been the main reason Luckin lost the case.

Implications for international expansion

Chinese food-industry analyst Zhu Danpeng said the defendant’s royal and military background meant uncontrollable factors could not be ruled out during litigation. From an intellectual-property protection perspective, he said the case offers lessons for Chinese companies expanding overseas and serves as a warning: as more Chinese companies pursue international strategies, similar cases and disputes are likely to increase, requiring stronger, more detailed and more thorough IP protection.

Some analysts also said the loss could have an important impact on Luckin Coffee’s overseas business development.

According to Luckin’s third-quarter report, the company had 13,273 stores at the end of the third quarter and expected to reach 15,000 stores by year-end. As China’s first coffee chain to exceed 10,000 stores, Luckin had continued to push in its domestic market while also turning its attention overseas, repeatedly mentioning overseas expansion plans during 2023.

Luckin had explored international expansion earlier. In July 2019, it announced an alliance with Kuwait-based The Americana Group to enter the Middle East and India through coffee retail. In April 2020, however, Luckin was hit by a financial-fraud scandal and was delisted from Nasdaq in June 2020, shelving its international strategy.

As operations improved, Luckin again put overseas expansion on the agenda. In its audited 2021 financial announcement released in April 2022, the company said it would “prudently explore overseas markets.”

This time, Luckin targeted Southeast Asia as its first international expansion region, with Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand listed as potential markets.

On March 31, Luckin announced that two stores in Singapore had entered trial operation. Singapore was Luckin Coffee’s first overseas market. According to the latest financial report cited in the article, Luckin added 11 stores in Singapore in the third quarter, bringing its Singapore store count to 18.

Thailand remains a key Southeast Asian market beyond Singapore. A recent Momentum Works report on Southeast Asia’s coffee market said Indonesia and Thailand were the region’s largest coffee markets, while Singapore had the highest per-capita consumption. In 2023, Indonesia’s coffee market was about US$947 million, and Thailand’s was about US$807 million, making Thailand attractive for Luckin as well.

Note: Store targets and overseas-expansion guidance are historical figures from the original December 3, 2023 article.