Crocodile Garments And Lacoste End Decade Long Patent Battle

by Mary Swire, for LawAndTax-News.com, Hong Kong

27 October 2003

Hong Kong-based retailer, Crocodile Garments, and French clothing firm, Lacoste announced last week that they have reached an agreement, following a patent infringement dispute which has lasted over a decade.

In 1980, Lacoste granted the SAR firm exclusive rights to its famous crocodile logo, with the proviso that it should only be used for the distribution of Lacoste products in Hong Kong. The French firm later claimed that Crocodile Garments had breached the agreement between the two companies when it registered a "confusingly similar" logo in China, the UK, and Denmark.

Under the terms of the settlement reached last week, Crocodile Garments will amend the look and colour of its crocodile logo in order to reduce the possibility of confusion with the Lacoste emblem. It has been given until March 2006 to rid itself of stock featuring the old logo, and has pledged not to expand its own brand beyond Hong Kong, China, and Macau.

Speaking to the regional media on Thursday, deputy chief executive of Crocodile Garments, Sunny Ching revealed that:

"I feel relieved to finally walk out of a miserable decade of lawsuits. Now we can deal with piracy and develop our business."

The two firms have pledged to join forces in order to combat mainland pirates who create unauthorised copies of their garments.

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