Media Guardian Story Lacoste tears in logo battle with dentistsMartin HodgsonThursday January 3, 2008The Guardian

A Cheltenham dental practice has won a protracted legal battle against an international fashion giant - over the rights to a toothy reptile. For the second time in a year, a trademark judge has rejected complaints from the French clothing company Lacoste over the crocodile sign adorning the surgery in Gloucestershire.
Lacoste had argued that the sign could wrongly lead people to associate the surgery with its brand.
The battle began in September 2004 when Dr Simon Moore and Dr Tim Rumney attempted to register the crocodile logo which they have used at the dental practice in Cheltenham since 1990. Lawyers for Lacoste said patients could wrongly associate the practice with the company, which has trademarked its crocodile symbol across 44 areas of goods and services.
At the Intellectual Property Office in Newport in May, the dentists represented themselves, arguing that shoppers would be unlikely to confuse a small clinic offering root canal surgery with a fashion boutique selling distinctive tennis shirts.
Ann Corbett, an adjudicator for the IPO, agreed, ruling that the two crocodiles were different enough to avoid confusion. "Dental services are so different to clothing that ... the average consumer of the goods and services in question, who is reasonably well informed and reasonably observant and circumspect, would not make that mistake."
Lacoste appealed, and the case was put before the UK Intellectual Property in London, but the judge, Professor Ruth Annand, has rejected the appeal.
Yesterday, Moore said Lacoste's legal action was "using a sledgehammer to crack a nut". He said: "We chose a crocodile as our logo simply because of the animal's association with a lot of teeth, nothing to do with Lacoste."
At the original hearing Lacoste was ordered to pay £1,000 towards the practice's legal costs. After the failed appeal, it has been ordered to pay a further £450.

This story is about Lacoste and a dental surgery having a similar logo. The dental surgery argue that they have had the logo since 1990 and that people will get confused. In the end Lacoste had to pay £1450 to the dental surgery. I think this is a stupid argument because no one will get confused about clothes and teeth. They probably just wanted the money (dental surgery).