Brandy Melville’s Swiss parent company, Y.Y.G.M. SA and its U.S. operator Bastiat USA are after Temu and its parent company, PDD Holdings, alleging that the online marketplace ripped off its intellectual property without consent.
The lawsuit, filed in a New Jersey federal court on Monday, alleges that Temu allowed counterfeit Brandy Melville products to be sold on its platform.
Temu is a third-party marketplace, which means it allows independent sellers to hawk their goods on the platform. But Brandy Melville alleges that, because Temu aids with the marketing, pricing, fulfillment and shipping of products sold by its sellers, it is “much more than a mere hosting platform,” leaving it open to liability on issues like these.
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“Although Temu calls itself an e-commerce marketplace and claims that it does not sell product itself and only provides a platform for sellers, Temu’s actual business practices show differently: Temu exerts control over its so-called independent sellers as to almost every aspect of its marketplace,” the lawsuit alleges.
Both Brandy and Temu are Gen Z favorites, and Temu has seen exponential growth on the U.S. app store as it has added more products to its assortment, introduced U.S.-based shipping, advertised in the country and more.
But Brandy Melville says in the complaint that the surge of popularity Temu has seen with U.S. consumers comes not from its business expansions and is “only possible by Temu’s exploitation of others’ intellectual property rights and has come at the expense of designers and other business owners, such as Brandy Melville, who have found near-identical versions of their product designs being sold on Temu at…much lower prices.”
Bastiat alleges that Temu infringed on Brandy Melville’s copyrighted Eye Fabric Design, and Y.Y.G.M. alleges that Temu infringed on Brandy Melville’s “Brandy [heart] Melville,” “Chill Since” and “Radio Silence” trademarks.
The companies allege Temu would have been “at all times aware that their products resemble [Brandy Melville’s] products so closely that consumers are likely to be, and in fact have been, confused as to the source of the infringing products.”
What’s more, the complaint alleges, when a user visits Temu’s site, they can use search terms like “Brandy Melville,” “Chill Since” and “Radio Silence” to return infringing products for sale.
Bastiat and Y.Y.G.M.’s allegations also target 10 Doe defendants—likely Temu sellers whose identities are not known to the plaintiffs prior to any discovery.
Temu and its sellers’ allegedly infringing behavior has, Brandy Melville contends, caused “irreparable harm and injury” to its brand, causing it to lose profits and sales while Temu and its sellers “received a direct financial benefit from marketing and selling the products.”
Brandy Melville accuses Temu and the Doe sellers of a host of crimes, including trademark infringement, copyright infringement, false designation of origin, unfair competition and more.
The company seeks preliminary and permanent injunctions, which would prevent Temu and the Doe sellers from infringing on Brandy Melville’s intellectual property. It also asks a judge to order that Temu be required to destroy any remaining infringing products and seeks millions of dollars in damages.
This is far from Brandy’s first intellectual property rodeo. The company filed a similar lawsuit against fast-fashion purveyor Shein last month, alleging that it had ripped off copyrighted photos for use on its own site. It also engaged in a heated, back-and-forth battle with merch company RedBubble, and has since filed another trademark infringement lawsuit against the marketplace.
The Brandy battle isn’t Temu’s first exposure to defending itself in court. The company is currently being sued by multiple states for alleged violations of consumer privacy and illegal data sharing; it also is entrenched in legal action with rival Shein.
Temu did not return Sourcing Journal’s request for comment on the Brandy Melville complaint.
