Pop Mart Sues 3D Printer Maker Bambu Lab for "labubu" Copyright Violation
February 28, 2026
Pop Mart, the copyright owner of “labubu”, has sued Shenzhen Bambu Lab Co., Ltd. (”Bambu Lab”) and its subsidiaries — the world’s largest owner of 3D printing model libraries (i.e., MakerWorld) for copyright infringement at the People’s Court of Pudong New Area, Shanghai.
The copyright disputes directly target MakerWorld, Bambu Lab’s flagship 3D printing model platform and one of the world’s largest. The platform hosts more than one million models and has nearly 10 million monthly active users, including many 3D print files based on popular art toy and cartoon IPs.
This marks the largest-scale copyright enforcement action initiated by a well-known IP owner against a 3D printing manufacturer to date. However, searching for “labubu” on MakerWorld now shows no 3D printing model files. Prior to this, it was reported that thousands of “labubu” files available on the platform.
Prior to Pop Mart, another IP owner Hanmu Chunhua, which owns the IP “The Legend of Luo Xiaohei”, also sued Bambu Lab in 2025 for the same reason. Similarly, the IP “The Legend of Luo Xiaohei” can no longer be found on MakerWorld.
However, when searching with keywords such as “Disney” and “Harry Potter”, many files of well-known IPs are still available on the platform.
Therefore, it is predicted that U.S. copyright owners will likely initiate copyright enforcement actions against Bambu Lab next, just like the copyright dispute triggered by ByteDance’s Seedance 2.0.
Bambu Lab’s rapid rise has been largely driven by its unique “hardware + content ecosystem” strategy. Over 90% of the models on MakerWorld are free, forming the core of its competitive advantage.
However, this business model is also easy to imitate, so in October 2025, Bambu Lab launched copyright enforcement actions against its Chinese competitors.
On October 10, 2025, MakerWorld announced legal action against three competing Chinese platforms: Creality Cloud (owned by Creality), Nexprint (owned by ELEGOO), and MakerOnline (owned by Anycubic).
In its statement, MakerWorld pointed out:
We have received documented cases from creators, which indicate that Creality Cloud, Nexprint and MakerOnline contain unauthorized reuploads of their exclusive models originally published on MakerWorld, as well as accounts impersonating the original creators. Several of these models then appeared in printer advertisement, violating licenses such as no derivatives and non-commercial use. After multiple complaints with no corrective action, we formally initiated legal steps recently.
Prior to this copyright enforcement action, Bambu Lab had already filed two patent infringement claims against Anycubic, one of its competitors, with the Fuzhou Intermediate People’s Court.
On November 28, 2025, the CNIPA published a patent invalidation challenge filed by Anycubic against Bambu Lab’s patent ZL202421297539.3, titled “3D Printing System.”
Beyond domestic competition, Bambu Lab has also faced intense international pressure. In 2024, Stratasys (NASDAQ: SSYS), a 3D printing giant, filed patent infringement lawsuits against Bambu Lab and several other Chinese 3D printing companies at the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, involving 10 patents: US9,421,713、US9,592,660、US7,555,357、US9,168,698、US10,556,381 (2:24-CV-00644); US10,569,466、US11,167,464、US8,747,097、US11,886,774、US8,562,324 (2:24-CV-00645).
Bambu Lab responded by filing patent invalidation requests against Stratasys in China.
The lawsuit between the two parties has also escalated to the Unified Patent Court (UPC). In December 2025, Bambu Lab filed a revocation lawsuit (UPC-CFI-0001952/2025) against Stratasys’ patent EP2964450 at the UPC Central Division in Paris. Since then, in January 2026, Stratasys has initiated provisional measures (UPC-CFI-0000305/2026) against Bambu Lab at the UPC Local Division Hague using this same patent.