A rising star in China’s winter fruit market in recent years, Cuimi kumquats — whose name literally translates as “crispy honey kumquats” — have earned the nickname “the Hermès of kumquats.” Conventional-grade fruit typically retails for 80–120 Chinese yuan ($11.98–17.97) per kilogram, while premium gift boxes can command prices exceeding 200 yuan ($29.95) per kilogram.

The lure of high profits, coupled with limited awareness of plant variety protection rights, has contributed to widespread counterfeiting and unauthorized propagation of nursery plants. Since the beginning of this year, multiple legal cases involving the protection of Cuimi kumquat plant variety rights have emerged in China.

On Oct. 10, the Intermediate People’s Court of Kunming, Yunnan province, held a public hearing on a plant variety rights infringement lawsuit concerning Cuimi kumquats filed by Guangxi Sanpeng Agricultural Development Co. Ltd. (广西三彭农业发展有限公司). This marked the first cross-provincial rights enforcement case involving the variety after its cultivation expanded beyond Guangxi [3].

According to publicly available information, the Kunming Intermediate People’s Court is scheduled to hear another plant variety rights infringement case on Nov. 13, in which Sanpeng has filed a lawsuit against Huaning Panxi Wang Yong Citrus Planting Base (华宁盘溪王勇柑桔种植基地) and an individual surnamed Wang.

The Cuimi kumquat is a third-generation improved cultivar developed from the Rong’an kumquat. It was jointly bred by the Liuzhou Fruit Technology Guidance Station (柳州市水果技术指导站), Guangxi University and the Rong’an County Fruit Technology Guidance Station (融安县水果技术指导站).

In September 2017, the Ministry of Agriculture granted these breeders plant variety rights for Cuimi kumquats, with a protection period of 20 years. In September 2025, the Rong’an County Fruit Technology Guidance Station signed a plant variety rights licensing agreement with Sanpeng, granting the company an exclusive license to conduct production, propagation, sales and rights enforcement activities related to the variety throughout mainland China.

This was not the first plant variety rights enforcement case initiated by Sanpeng. In early June of this year, China’s first-ever case involving the protection of rights for the Cuimi variety attracted widespread attention.

Sanpeng filed a lawsuit against two companies in Rong County, Yulin, Guangxi, as well as the legal representative of one of the companies, an individual surnamed Zhong, alleging that they had sold Cuimi kumquat nursery plants without authorization. In the trial, the Nanning Intellectual Property Tribunal determined that the evidence and supporting materials submitted by Sanpeng were authentic and valid. The court granted Sanpeng’s requests for the three defendants to cease production, propagation and sales activities and to render all unsold nursery plants nonviable. The court also rejected the defendants’ counterarguments and ultimately ordered the three defendants to jointly pay 999,000 yuan ($149,595) in punitive damages and litigation costs to the plaintiff.

On the same day, the court also heard a separate plant variety rights dispute case filed by Sanpeng against Guangxi Rong County Leifeng Agricultural Co. Ltd. (广西容县雷枫农业有限公司) and Guangxi Rong County Yimu Liangtian Agricultural Co. Ltd. (广西容县一亩良田农业有限公司) over Cuimi kumquats. Following the hearing, the court announced that a ruling would be issued at a later date.

In recent years, China has continued to strengthen the judicial protection of intellectual property rights in the seed industry, improve mechanisms for handling related cases and crack down on infringements involving protected plant varieties. Any unauthorized propagation or sale of protected varieties constitutes an infringement of plant variety rights and may result in corresponding legal liability.

Images: JD.com

This article was based on a Chinese article. Read the original article [4].