The Temu Copyright Lawsuit: What to Expect

The Accusations Against Temu

The Shein complaint about Temu kicks off with a bang, accusing Temu of being an unlawful enterprise built on counterfeiting, theft of trade secrets, infringement of intellectual property rights, and fraud in just the first sentence. But I guess you have to go big when the lawsuit against you accuses you of using Mafia-style intimidation tactics.

What Shein Alleges

It gets worse, Shein alleges. Temu isn’t a marketplace at all. “It controls every aspect of its seller’s activity,” the complaint says. “It directs what products they can list and the prices for which they can sell; encourages them to infringe the intellectual property rights of others; and even prevents them from removing their products from Temu’s website after they have admitted to infringement.” I would like to be clear: I am still in the first paragraph of this complaint, a paragraph which uses bitchy scare-quotes around every incidence of calling Temu a “marketplace.”