Copycat chocolate wars

Hotel Chocolat’s co-founder Angus Thirlwell “I’m peeling myself off the wall in terms of emotion because it’s one of the first products I designed…they’re running adverts like it’s some amazing piece of creativity and you just think: ‘Hang on, this is a complete rip-off.’ It’s got to stop. We’re hoping that they’ll do the right thing,” he said but also warned that Hotel Chocolat has not ruled out legal action”. Hotel Choclate may well face difficulties if it did bring legal action.Â

You only have to walk in to any Aldi or Lidl and see how they copycat with inpunity Â

but they seem to learn to live with each other. Contrast this with Puffin biscuits case, where a successful action was brought against Asda for selling chocolate biscuits under the name “Puffin” and in very similar packaging to that in which the claimant sold its “Penguin” biscuits [1997] R.P.C. 513