Pop Mart’s LAFUFU battle could be a new opposition strategy stencil

The LABUBU owner has successfully opposed a US application for LAFUFU, illustrating how trademark owners can challenge marks that emerge around products alleged to be counterfeit or imitations.

Pop Mart is using trademark enforcement to protect its LABUBU brand, with a US opposition against an application for LAFUFU providing an example of how brand owners can intervene before a potentially problematic mark reaches registration.

Pop Mart (Singapore) Holding Pte. Ltd. opposed a US trademark application for LAFUFU filed by Shenzhen Huatengxing Enterprise Management Co. Ltd. The application covered dolls, plush dolls, doll accessories, clothing for dolls, and related toys in Class 28.

The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) sustained Pop Mart’s opposition on May 27, 2026. The applicant had failed to file an answer, leading the TTAB to issue a notice of default on March 25. The LAFUFU application is now recorded as abandoned following the inter partes decision.

The proceeding is notable because LAFUFU has become widely associated with imitation versions of Pop Mart’s LABUBU products, creating an unusual example of a name developing around a counterfeit market and subsequently becoming the subject of trademark enforcement.

The US opposition

The LAFUFU application was filed at the US Patent and Trademark Office on July 2, 2025, by Shenzhen Huatengxing Enterprise Management Co. Ltd. It claimed use in US commerce beginning May 12, 2025.

Pop Mart filed its opposition on January 13, 2026.

In its notice of opposition, Pop Mart relied on its LABUBU trademark, including US Registration No. 7,839,144. It also claimed common-law rights in LABUBU dating from at least June 2022 and alleged that it had built substantial goodwill in the mark through the marketing and sale of its products.

The TTAB instituted the opposition on January 13 and set March 14 as the deadline for the applicant’s answer. After no answer was filed, the Board issued a notice of default on March 25. The opposition was subsequently sustained on May 27.

The result was that the LAFUFU application did not proceed to registration.

It is important, however, not to overstate the decision. The TTAB did not issue a substantive merits ruling finding that LAFUFU infringes LABUBU or that the two marks are confusingly similar. The proceeding was terminated after the applicant’s default.

From counterfeit nickname to trademark issue

LAFUFU has been used online to describe imitation or counterfeit LABUBU dolls. Reporting in 2025 described the term as a nickname for fake LABUBU products that had become increasingly familiar among consumers and collectors.

That development creates an interesting brand-protection problem.

A term originally used informally to describe an imitation product can acquire its own recognition among consumers. Once a third party seeks to register that term as a trademark for related goods, the issue moves from counterfeit enforcement into the formal trademark-registration system.

That is what happened with the US LAFUFU application.

Rather than waiting for the application to proceed through examination and registration, Pop Mart challenged it through the opposition process.

Part of a wider LABUBU strategy

The LAFUFU opposition is not an isolated piece of Pop Mart’s US trademark activity.

USPTO records show Pop Mart (Singapore) Holding Pte. Ltd. has brought a series of opposition proceedings against applications incorporating LABUBU or variations of the name.

Recent proceedings include oppositions involving AMLABUBU, LABUBU, and KOALABUBU. Pop Mart’s registered LABUBU mark, US Registration No. 7,839,144, is identified in those proceedings.

That activity points to a broader strategy of monitoring third-party applications that incorporate or closely resemble one of Pop Mart’s key brands.

For brand owners, that represents an important distinction from conventional counterfeit enforcement.

Counterfeit enforcement generally focuses on unauthorized products, sellers, and listings. Trademark opposition provides another intervention point: a potentially problematic mark can be challenged before it becomes a registered trademark.

Protecting the brand beyond the core mark

The LAFUFU dispute also highlights a broader question for brand-protection teams: how far should a trademark enforcement strategy extend beyond the core brand name?

LABUBU’s popularity has generated a large online ecosystem involving genuine products, resale markets, fan-created content, imitation products, and counterfeit goods.

In that environment, new names can emerge around the brand and become recognizable to consumers. LAFUFU is an example of how terminology associated with alleged imitation products can itself become commercially significant.

Pop Mart has separately pursued enforcement against alleged counterfeit LABUBU products. In a 2025 US lawsuit involving 7-Eleven operators, for example, Pop Mart asserted trademark, copyright, and unfair competition claims concerning allegedly counterfeit products. The complaint also referred to social media use of the term LAFUFU in connection with purportedly fake LABUBU products.

The combination of litigation, trademark opposition, and portfolio management gives the company multiple mechanisms for protecting the commercial identity surrounding its products.

A lesson for brand protection teams

The LAFUFU proceeding does not establish a new legal test for trademark infringement, and the TTAB did not reach a substantive conclusion on the merits because of the applicant’s default.

Its significance is strategic.

Pop Mart identified a third-party application for a term associated with imitation LABUBU products and opposed the application before it could mature into a US registration. At the same time, its wider TTAB activity shows continuing efforts to challenge applications incorporating LABUBU and related variations.

For brands facing similar problems, the lesson is that trademark monitoring may need to extend beyond obvious copies of the brand itself.

As viral brands generate their own online language, protecting the brand may increasingly mean monitoring the names and terminology that develop around it.

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