As the top grossing films of all time, the Minions series as well as its peripheral products under Universal Pictures had also enjoyed high popularity in China.

In 2018, Universal Pictures found that six defendants, including China's "Cangzhou Qianchixue Food Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Qianchixue Company")", produced and sold dairy drinks with patterns substantially similar to Minions cartoon images without authorization from Universal Pictures, and the trademark license and sublicense among the six defendants were somehow related to each other. Before the alleged infringing products were put into the market, other beverage companies had obtained the license to use the image of Minions from Universal Pictures through legal channels, and the infringing products of Qianchixue Company had blocked the sales of products licensed by other legal licensors of Universal Pictures.

Universal Pictures filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against the six defendants with Suzhou Intermediate People's Court on April 25, 2019, demanding that the six defendants immediately stop the infringement. The first five defendants should also bear the responsibility of eliminating the impact and jointly compensating 5 million for economic losses and reasonable expenses, and the sixth defendant should compensate 100,000 for economic losses and reasonable expenses. After trial of second instance, the Jiangsu Higher People's Court made the final judgment, and supported Universal Pictures' application.

In the past judicial practice in China, the amount of compensation ordered in cases of copyright infringement of art works is seldom as high as compared with audio-visual works, similar film works and software works, and 5.1 million is the highest amount awarded in China so far, and it has also become a representative case of foreign-funded enterprises in the field of cartoon image derivatives rights protection in China.