Slayer Espresso machine. Pexels.
A Chinese appellate court has upheld and expanded an earlier ruling involving knockoff Slayer Espresso machines, confirming unfair competition and adding a finding of trademark infringement.
The appellate court also increased damages from RMB 800,000 to RMB 2 million, or approximately $275,000.
The ruling is a follow-up to a 2025 decision in which a Chinese court ordered four companies to stop producing and marketing espresso machines whose designs and packaging resembled those of Slayer Espresso, the Seattle-based machine company acquired by Italy’s Cimbali Group in 2017.
The second court victory was described by Cimbali Group in social media posts. Daily Coffee News has been unable to obtain or independently confirm the ruling or its contents. A report from the legal publication ICLG News said a heavily redacted judgment was handed down in March and released publicly July 7, with the names of the defendants and their lawyers blacked out.
Cimbali Group described the ruling as “a historic legal victory for Intellectual Property in the professional coffee industry” and as a “rare, complete appellate victory for a foreign operator in our sector.”
Daily Coffee News photo by Nick Brown.
“This ruling goes well beyond protecting our corporate interests. It is an important result for all companies operating in China with products featuring high levels of design and innovation,” Cimbali Group Managing Director Frédéric Thil said in the announcement. “We pursued this battle not only to protect the Slayer brand and our customers, but because we firmly believe that the defense of intellectual property and know-how is an indispensable pillar of fair and sustainable international trade.”
A cursory look at Amazon, Alibaba and other online sellers revealed apparent knockoffs of coffee equipment for both home and commercial use.
China has expanded its formal IP enforcement system over the past decade, including specialized IP courts, IP tribunals and a national Intellectual Property Court within the Supreme People’s Court for certain technical appeals.
Yet the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s 2023 China Intellectual Property Rights Toolkit warns that rights holders still face a complex enforcement landscape, including administrative, civil, criminal and customs channels. The guide also flags challenges including low deterrent fines, insufficient civil damages, limited transparency, a lack of discovery and difficulty collecting evidence
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