Thai dessert shop's 'we patented Pang Cha' post forced a national apology

On a Monday in August 2023, Lukkaithong Thai Royal Restaurant — the shop behind 'Pang Cha World Class Thai Tea', a Thai-style shaved ice bingsu of bread soaked in Thai tea — announced on Facebook that it had 'patented' the words 'Pang Cha' in both Thai and English and reserved the copyright, illustrating the post with its famous dessert. Thai social media erupted: users demanded to know why the Intellectual Property Department had allowed a common dessert's name to be patented, and how any other shop could serve a similar dish without getting into trouble.

The department, the shop and an intellectual property law expert, Dr Peerapat Foithong, spent the following days unwinding the claim. What was registered was a trademark, not a patent: the special font and signature styling of the words 'Pang Cha', images of a woman printed on the shop's tea bottles, figures in a kimono, Thai costume and saree, plant-styled Thai characters — and the way the dessert is arranged in a bowl.

Thai law does not allow recipes to be registered at all, Peerapat noted, and a trademark owner forfeits any right to bar others from using 'pang' (bread) or 'cha' (tea) as common words: another seller can freely advertise 'Pang Bingsu Cha Thai Yen'.

On the Tuesday, the shop's Pang Cha World Class Thai Tea page apologised for the misunderstanding its announcement caused. The episode echoed a live Thai debate over dessert trademarks: in 2021 the Intellectual Property Court ordered the new teashop Mee Phon Fai to stop using its one-word-off imitation of the registered Sua Phon Fai and pay 10 million baht in compensation.

The announcement claimed a patent and copyright over the common name of a dish sold across Thailand, which no registration grants.

It read as a threat to every small shop serving the same dessert, converting a legitimate trademark into a national talking point.

The uproar was loud enough that the Intellectual Property Department itself had to step in and explain what the registration did and did not cover.

The retreat — a public apology within a day of the expert explanations — confirmed the messaging, not the registration, was the error.

Announce your IP the way a lawyer would read it: telling the public you own a dish's common name turns a routine trademark into a national story about bullying small shops.

The shop apologised on its Pang Cha World Class Thai Tea page on the Tuesday; experts confirmed other shops can sell the same bingsu without legal trouble. The Intellectual Property Department reiterated that general words and phrases cannot be registered as trademarks.