Preface
Recently, the Jiangsu Provincial High People's Court made a final judgment on an unfair competition dispute case between Yili and Mengniu (2025) Su Min Zhong No. 519).
According to the court's judgment, it is determined that Mengniu's "Selected Ranch" pure milk constitutes unfair competition due to the use of packaging decoration that is highly similar to Yili's "Jindian". Mengniu needs to immediately cease its infringement behavior and compensate Yili for economic losses and reasonable expenses totaling 5 million yuan. The reporter noticed from the second instance judgment of the case that Yili also requested Mengniu to publish a statement in print media such as China Intellectual Property News and Rule of Law Daily to eliminate the adverse impact of infringement on Yili.
1、 Frequent infringement incidents
This is not the first time that a packaging dispute has arisen between Mengniu and Yili.
In 2012, Yili launched the popular "QQ Star" for children, and in 2015, Mengniu launched the "Future Star" yogurt drink. Yili sued Mengniu Future Star for unfair competition in product packaging and decoration.
In the end, the Haidian District People's Court of Beijing made a judgment that the infringement constituted unfair competition, and ordered Mengniu to stop infringing and bear more than 2 million yuan in economic compensation and reasonable expenses.
In 2023, Yili sued Modern Dairy, a subsidiary of Mengniu, alleging unfair competition in the packaging and decoration of its "Modern Dairy Pure Milk" product. After the first instance trial, Mengniu Company changed the packaging and decoration of the goods and paid a compensation of 980000 yuan. The two parties reached a settlement and closed the case.
In addition, Mengniu also applied for registration of the "Qiaocheizi" trademark case in 2010, which is extremely similar to the registered trademark "Qiaocheizi" of Yili Company. Yili Company raised a trademark objection at that time, and the Trademark Office made a ruling not to approve the registration of Mengniu Company's trademark.




2、 Packaging is similar
The green and white color scheme, pasture, and dairy cows are common elements on milk product packaging. However, if we look at the packaging of Yili Jindian and Mengniu Selected Ranch together, it can indeed be described as "highly similar", especially with the identical layout of the two product trademarks and the word "pure milk".
Last May, Yili sued Mengniu for unfair competition, arguing that the decoration of Mengniu's "Selected Ranch" pure milk was highly similar to the packaging of "Jindian" pure milk, which could easily cause confusion among consumers and constitute unfair competition.
From the launch time of the two products, Mengniu's "Selected Ranch" was launched in 2013; Jindian was born in 2006 as a high-end brand under Yili. After years of operation, it has gained strong market recognition and has achieved excellent sales performance. According to public information, Yili Jindian's sales exceeded 20 billion yuan last year, accounting for over 10% of the entire ambient temperature white milk market share.
Regarding the accusation of "unfair competition", Mengniu defended that elements such as green, cows, and pastures belong to the universal design of dairy product packaging, and its own "selected pasture" brand has been in operation for more than ten years, and the packaging is a continuation of its own design. But the court found that Mengniu did not highlight the main trademark "Mengniu" on the front of the packaging, only marked it in small letters, objectively weakening the brand recognition.
3、 Will similar packaging confuse consumers' vision?
In the second instance judgment, a survey report from a third-party notary office showed that 82.6% of respondents believed that the packaging images of Yili's "Jindian" pure milk and Mengniu's "Selected Ranch" pure milk were mainly due to the similar overall visual effect and color matching.
In addition, 83.9% of respondents believe that there is a correlation between these two products after seeing the packaging. The evidence provided by Yili indicates that many consumers found themselves buying the wrong item after purchasing Mengniu Selected Ranch, thinking it was a golden scripture.
The Jiangsu Provincial High People's Court has finally made the following judgment.
Firstly, the packaging and decoration should focus on the main parts that play a role in recognition and the overall visual effect, rather than comparing each side of the three-dimensional packaging one by one. The two products form a similar composition.
Secondly, based on the high popularity of the packaging involved in the case, the high similarity of the accused packaging, the easy confusion of the product sales scene, and the actual confusion of comments by platform users, it is sufficient to determine that it is likely to cause confusion among the relevant public.
Thirdly, although Mengniu Selected Ranch uses some prior elements (such as trademarks and cow patterns), its pattern arrangement and overall style are significantly different from the prior design, and do not constitute a continuation of the prior design. It is intentionally established to cling to Yili Company's packaging and decoration.
In summary, the court believes that Mengniu Company's unauthorized use of similar packaging and decoration constitutes unfair competition.
4、 Summary
The success of Yili's "Golden Classic" further proves the potential of this group of consumers, which is highly attractive to Mengniu, which lacks a second growth curve.
Behind the packaging dispute is the fierce competition between two dairy giants in the high-end battlefield, and it is also the increasingly differentiated performance of the two companies.
In the first half of this year, Yili's operating revenue was 61.933 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 3.37%; The net profit attributable to the parent company is 7.2 billion yuan. During the same period, Mengniu's revenue was 41.567 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 6.95%; Net profit decreased by 16.37% year-on-year to 2.046 billion yuan.
The size difference between Mengniu and Yili is already 20 billion yuan, and Yili's profit is more than three times that of Mengniu.
Since 2019, Yili has extended the "green, organic, and ecological" story of "Jindian" to milk powder and ice cream, forming a "one brand, multiple products" matrix. The three high gross profit sub brands of "Jindian", "Anmuxi", and "Jinlingguan" together account for more than half of Yili's revenue. It can be said that Yili has achieved positive gains for the group in terms of brand assets and multi brand collaboration.
Consumers' choice of branded products is essentially based on trust in brand reputation, product quality, and after-sales support. Some companies currently use unfair competition methods such as imitating packaging, product labeling, and names, which clearly have the intention of misleading consumers and causing them to mistakenly purchase non genuine products. Such behavior not only damages the brand image, but also infringes on consumers' rights to information, fair trade, and reasonable trust interests. In addition, companies engaged in trademark infringement often have loopholes in management standards and quality control. If their products violate the Product Quality Law or Food Safety Law, it will pose a potential threat to consumers' personal health. Strengthening intellectual property protection is not only necessary for maintaining market order, but also an important measure to safeguard consumer rights and interests.