Shein, the older of the two e-commerce retailers, has filed papers with a federal court in Washington, DC, accusing Temu of a litany of anticompetitive practices including copyright infringement, trademark violations and trading in counterfeit goods.
"The background to the dispute is Temu's entry in to US market," said Werina Griffiths, partner specialising in brand protection at South African law firm Adams Adams , in a recent interview with TechCentral.
"The court papers claim Temu entered the US market in 2022, and that by May 2024 it had already acquired a user base of between 150 and 160 million users. So, in a very short space of time, Temu got a strong foothold in the US market, and being direct competitors, a portion of that user base would have come at a cost for Shein," Griffiths said.
First among the allegations made by Shein is the claim of copyright infringement. Shein alleges that Temu copied designs used on clothing, such as pictures or slogans, and related to this, has claimed that Temu "lifts" advertising material in the form of model photographs from Shein's website, removes the Shein watermark and then uses these images to promote copies of the same products on its own website.
A third allegation regards alleged false advertising. According to Shein, Temu has in the past set up false accounts and social media profiles under Shein's name.
