You have no idea how difficult it is to buy a genuine Xiaomi product online.

A few days ago, my aunt sent me a screenshot and asked which store in the picture sells Xiaomi's toilets?

It really blew my mind. For a moment, I thought they all did, but upon closer inspection, it seemed none of them were right.

Swipe left. Then I went to the online shopping platform myself and specifically searched for "Xiaomi Smart Toilet". Here are the results.

After taking a look, I was even more stunned. Which one do you think in front of the screen is the real Xiaomi?

However, no matter how you choose, the answers to the above two questions are the same:

None of them is Xiaomi.

Because, Xiaomi, or the official Mi Home, has never launched a smart toilet product so far.

But the reality is that whether you search on an online shopping platform or through some big - data recommendations, a large number of stores, whether from their store names, cover pictures, or product introductions, are playing word games with you and being ambiguous, trying to make you believe that their stores sell official genuine products of the Xiaomi brand.

Some of the more decent ones will tell you clearly that their products are from the Xiaomi ecological chain. The more excessive ones have store names directly with something like "a certain Mi".

Even more outrageous, some don't even pretend. Their names are like "** Xiaomi's Store", and there are even "Xiao (space) Mi".

We simply searched for Xiaomi on Qichacha and found that their trademark infringement cases are endless.

From the earliest counterfeiting of Xiaomi mobile phones, to the so - called "Xiaomi 4K" TVs later, and then to a sea of pirated power banks and other products.

As early as a few years ago, this phenomenon of the whole world counterfeiting Xiaomi had already worried Lei Jun.

He once publicly addressed the public, saying that 30% - 40% of the Xiaomi mobile phones on the market are fakes, and more than 80% of the power banks are counterfeits.

This phenomenon has reached a "pathological" level for Xiaomi. Counterfeiting and piggy - backing on Xiaomi can be seen almost everywhere in life.

There is a so - called smart rice cup that claims to relieve people's fatigue throughout the day.

Even the Xiaomi Su7 already has its own alternative counterfeits.

Even more outrageous, in short dramas, there are characters like Su Qi from the "Xiaomiao Group" who are blatantly counterfeiting and piggy - backing on the trend.

Moreover, the wave of counterfeiting Xiaomi once spread abroad.

In 2015, a mobile phone brand called "iMi" appeared in Thailand. The trademark used by this manufacturer is simply a copy of Xiaomi's, even the font is the same.

It even achieved sales of 1 billion Thai baht (about 176 million RMB) in the ASEAN market...

However, the counterfeiting story that has given Xiaomi a headache may soon come to an end.

Because not long ago, Xiaomi won a very representative counterfeiting and infringement case.

Why is it representative? Let's take a look at this master counterfeiter of Xiaomi. Its product name is directly "Xiaomi Zero Degree", and in all other aspects, it has almost copied Xiaomi millimeter - by - millimeter.

Xiaomi Zero Degree mainly operates household products such as toilets and showers. In addition to piggy - backing on Xiaomi with the brand name "Xiaomi Zero Degree", it also set its brand trademark to be very similar to the "mi" logo as "M", and the voice wake - up word as "Xiaoai Xiaoai".

Moreover, on some social platforms, many people bought Xiaomi Zero Degree's smart toilets and found them very useless. In turn, they thought the quality of Xiaomi's products was poor.

This time, Xiaomi successfully won the lawsuit against Xiaomi Zero Degree and was compensated 30 million yuan, giving a good lesson to counterfeit manufacturers.

Don't underestimate this victory. For Xiaomi, it may just be a case on the long road of rights protection, but its deeper meaning is to give confidence to a large number of domestic brands in rights protection.

Because Xiaomi's final victory was due to the recognition of trademark infringement.

You know, Xiaomi's "MI" logo was originally registered for 3C categories such as mobile phones and home appliances. According to the previous statement, no matter how much the trademark of household products like toilets is misused, it doesn't fall into the 3C category.

But this time, the court directly cited Article 13 of the Trademark Law:

"For trademarks applied for registration for the same or similar goods that are copies, imitations, or translations of well - known trademarks not registered in China by others and are likely to cause confusion, registration shall not be granted and use shall be prohibited. For trademarks applied for registration for non - identical or non - similar goods that are copies, imitations, or translations of well - known trademarks already registered in China by others, misleading the public and causing possible damage to the interests of the well - known trademark registrant, registration shall not be granted and use shall be prohibited."

Once a brand is recognized as a well - known trademark, it means that no matter whether you are selling toilets or rockets, as long as you use a similar logo, it may constitute an infringement.

Moreover, the calculation of compensation in this case is also very representative.

Similar product infringement cases have also been won by mobile phone manufacturers before. For example, in 2020, vivo successfully cracked down on "vivi", but only received a compensation of 1.035 million yuan at that time.

This time, the court directly imposed "punitive compensation" on the infringing merchants. They retrieved all the background data of the defendant's online store and accurately calculated their profit margin to be 27%.

Then, based on the 27 million yuan profit, additional penalties were imposed, making the compensation amount reach 30 million yuan.

With similar cases, it also shows that with the improvement of various laws and regulations, it is becoming more and more difficult for counterfeit goods to survive.

However, we also found that aside from these real counterfeits, there are even more annoying things about Xiaomi.

That is, the development of the Mi Home ecosystem has become a bit dizzying today.

Take the very popular rainbow batteries on the Internet as an example. Even our editorial department can't figure it out.

About 5 or 6 colleagues in the editorial department said they had bought Xiaomi rainbow batteries. But when we checked, we found that there might be two kinds of "Mi Home ecosystem" rainbow batteries online.

One is the "genuine" rainbow battery with the Mi Home logo, and the other is the "ZMI" rainbow battery with the ZMI logo.

This is the real Xiaomi rainbow battery