Recently, countless young people's social media platforms have been flooded by a Pok é mon doll named Labubu. Offline stores are lined up with winding long queues, and the online second-hand market is priced several times higher. Behind this global trend of trendy toys, there is a worrying fact: while countless collectors are anxious about the difficulty of finding a "cloth", some criminals have already established a complete counterfeit industry chain, continuously exporting counterfeit products to the market.


In March 2023, during routine online inspections, the "FARMER BOB" brand discovered that multiple e-commerce live streaming rooms were selling their dolls at prices far below market rates. This abnormal situation immediately raised alarm, and as the police conducted a thorough investigation, a well-organized counterfeit production and sales network spanning multiple provinces gradually surfaced.
A criminal gang led by Wu has surfaced. They were previously prosecuted by the brand for selling counterfeit figurines, but this time their fraudulent methods are more covert and professional.
The gang first contacted Lv and Zhu, who operate a resin handicraft factory, to customize uncolored "white embryo" semi-finished products. Then, they organized workers in their own workshop to spray paint, depict, and label these "perfectly replicated" counterfeit products, and finally sold them to various parts of the country through live streaming platforms.
When the police raided its production site, more than 2400 counterfeit "FARMER BOB" and "Bubble Mart" series doll products were seized at the scene, as well as thousands of white semi-finished products waiting for processing.
After the case enters the judicial process, the procuratorial organs face a highly professional legal dilemma: can those uncolored "white embryo" semi-finished products be recognized as "works of art" protected by copyright law?
This issue is directly related to the conviction and sentencing of suspect.
After in-depth research and multi-party evidence collection, the procuratorial organs have finally determined that the white embryo itself has originality and artistic beauty, and can be independently protected by law as an art work. This determination sets an important precedent for the handling of such new types of infringement cases.
What is even more worrying is that these counterfeit products have serious security risks hidden behind them.
The test results show that some of the dolls produced by the gang have a high level of migratory heavy metals and harmful substances, and the main consumer group of these "three no" products is young people with weak identification ability.


In view of the fact that the case involves minors' health and public interests, the procuratorial organ initiated the public interest litigation procedure in such intellectual property cases for the first time, and ordered the main suspect to publicly apologize in the national media, recall the sold products and issue consumer warnings.
At present, this judgment has been enforced.
On September 28, 2023, the People's Procuratorate of Pudong New Area, Shanghai, prosecuted 9 people including Wu, Lv, and Zhu on suspicion of copyright infringement.
At the same time, the procuratorial organs also suggest that the brand owners file criminal and civil lawsuits to achieve dual criminal and civil accountability, and continue to prosecute other participants in the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain, truly achieving a full chain crackdown.
This case involves both civil and criminal, copyright and trademark rights, private interests and public welfare, and is a typical "multi cross" intellectual property case. The prosecution's comprehensive accountability from the source of counterfeiting to the sales terminal demonstrates the strength of comprehensive protection of intellectual property rights and judicial wisdom.
Trendy toys are not only commodities, but also cultural symbols that carry the emotions and dreams of young people. Counterfeiters not only harm the economic interests of brand owners, but also the trust of consumers in quality and safety.
The successful handling of this case not only deterred the counterfeit industry chain, but also built a solid judicial protection barrier for all original designs.