Lacoste Sues Marks & Spencer for Use of Crocodile Signs

When it comes to animal-shaped trademark battles, UK retailer Marks & Spencer (hereinafter referred to as M&S) is no stranger to them. In 2021, M&S has taken legal action against the German supermarket chain Aldi for copying its iconic Colin the Caterpillar cake with a similar-looking product named Cuthbert. The case has raised quite some media coverage and created some social media viral.

Less than one year later, M&S has found itself caught up in another trademark battle involving animal prints, and this time on the other side of the table and against the French fashion house brand Lacoste.

M&S has been accused of infringing the trademark rights of Lacoste by using a crocodile image that is similar to Lacoste’s distinctive crocodile logo on a range of clothing and homeware accessories.

Lacoste believes that the use of a similar image, in this case the crocodile, could cause confusion and by doing this, M&S is taking unfair advantage in marketing. 

Lacoste stated that it had previously demanded for M&S to cease marketing and selling the crocodile logoed products but the latter refused to comply and continued with the launch of the disputed goods. Lacoste has now asked a London court to impose an injunction to order M&S to destroy all the goods bearing the crocodile image at its own expense and to not infringe upon Lacoste’s trademark rights in the future.

M&s has yet to file their defense in this case, but in a public statement, a spokesperson commented that “animal prints are incredibly popular with our customers and last season selected ranges included decorative crocodile patterns. All of these products were created independently of any other retailer and we’re confident are unique to M&S and will robustly defend against the claim.”

Ultimately, it is for the judge to decide as to whether or not Lacoste is able to achieve its claims, but the lawsuit brings us the following question - does this mean that it’s impossible for anyone else rather than Lacoste to put a crocodile on clothing or homeware accessories?

It is important to know that, further to the ‘typical’ trademark infringement scenarios which involve identical marks or logos used in identical or similar goods or services, one can also infringe upon the others’ trademark rights even if he is not using the identical signs on the same goods or services.

When a trademark is registered and especially when it has established a certain level of reputation and goodwill, using the identical or similar logo on the same goods or services could cause confusion to the public and bring an unfair advantage in marketing.