Pop Mart, the maker of popular plush doll Labubu, is suing 7-Eleven Inc. and seven of its California convenience stores, alleging the retailers are selling inferior counterfeit versions of its product.
The complaint was filed Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California’s Western Division by Glendale, California-based Pop Mart Americas Inc., Singapore-based Pop Mart Holding Pte. Ltd. and Beijing, China-based Beijing Pop Mart Cultural & Creative Co. Ltd.
The suit names Irving, Texas-based c-store chain 7-Eleven as well as Mayer Brothers Group Inc., HRBS Enterprises Inc., Chitta Channin, Tera Tera Inc., Neettrio Inc., Sandhu McHenry & Morris Store LLC and West Adams Petroleum Inc., which all operate 7-Eleven c-stores across California. 7-Eleven did not respond to CSP’s requests for comment on this story.
- 7-Eleven is No. 1 on CSP’s 2025 Top 202 ranking of c-store chains by U.S. store count.
The Labubu doll and character is a global viral phenomenon, Pop Mart said in the complaint. Pop Mart said it is an innovator in toy presentation, offering its products in a variety of “fun and exciting ways,” including a “blind box” presentation in stores (where the customer does not know which specific doll is in the box until they open it), robotic vending machines and online channels. Pop Mart said it does not offer its products in 7-Eleven stores.
“Pop Mart has discovered that, as the Labubu dolls’ popularity exploded, 7-Eleven locations began offering counterfeit versions of many Pop Mart products,” the toymaker claims in the complaint. “The 7-Eleven products are of inferior quality, but they use identical or virtually identical copies of Pop Mart’s trademarks, trade dress and product and packaging design.”
The complaint shows a comparison of a genuine Pop Mart product (pictured left) compared to a counterfeit product (right) sold in a 7-Eleven store.
Labubu comes from Pop Mart’s The Monsters series, designed by Hong Kong artist Kasing Lung. The series was inspired by Norse mythology and features a tribe of magical elf characters that inhabit the Nordic forests and “love a bit of harmless mischief but have hearts of gold,” Pop Mart said in the complaint. The elves include Labubu, Mokoko and Zimomo dolls and characters.
Labubu was first introduced in picture books in 2015, but the character’s viral breakout moment came in 2023 with Pop Mart’s vinyl plush Labubu keychains, the complaint said.
Pop Mart said The Monsters series have generated more than $420 million in revenue in 2024, with $34 million in revenue in the United States.
In the lawsuit, first reported by TFL, Pop Mart claims that 7-Eleven and the other stores previously named have engaged in trademark and trade dress counterfeiting and infringement and unfair competition by selling, displaying, distributing and marketing products and packaging that are identical or virtually identical and confusingly similar to Pop Mart’s Labubu products.
It also claims the 7-Eleven products are “of poor quality and unsightly.” Pop Mart said in the complaint that the counterfeit dolls have had eyes that are poorly secured, substandard fur stitching, heads or hands that come off or upside-down faces.
“Videos show unsuspecting buyers driving out of their way to a 7-Eleven store in hopes of purchasing a genuine Pop Mart Labubu doll and unboxing what they believed to be authentic merchandise, only to discover they were counterfeits, featuring poor-quality materials, misspelled brand names and/or packaging inconsistencies. As noted above, there is even a neologism coined for this counterfeit phenomenon many videos and social media posts refer to these 7-Eleven Counterfeit Products as Lafufus,” the complaint states.
The complaint also alleges that 7-Eleven is selling counterfeit products in Florida, Texas and internationally, citing social media posts.
Pop Mart is looking to stop 7-Eleven and other defendants from selling the counterfeit Labubu dolls, selling any goods with imitations of the Pop Mart marks, pay Pop Mart for damages and recall all merchandise claiming to be Pop Mart’s or Labubu’s, among other items, according to the lawsuit.
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