Dragons’ Den Success Story Piddle Patch Defeats ‘Campaign of Infringement’ in Court

In a groundbreaking trademark infringement case the judge has found in favour of Makeality Ltd in a row with a rival brand accused of infringing the ‘Piddle Patch’ trademark. District Judge Obodai pronounced in the High Court IPEC small claims track on Friday that City Doggo Ltd and Laurencia Walker-Fooks had deliberately set out to benefit from the Piddle Patch trademark and that “…passing off is exactly what she intended when she began her campaign of infringement." 

Judge Obodai said, “I also find that they (the infringements) were not isolated or accidental incidents but were a deliberate policy to promote the sign in the relevant market."

Makeality Ltd. registered ‘Piddle Patch’ – the first eco-friendly real grass dog toilet in the UK - as a trademark in 2016. Founder Rebecca Sloan designed and developed the product, and scaled the brand over the following years. 

Piddle Patch built up significant goodwill from a subscriber base, testimonials from celebrity vets and dog trainers, plus acquiring published articles in national press and an association with major BBC TV programme Dragons’ Den and entrepreneur Steven Bartlett.

The founder of City Doggo Ltd, Laurencia Walker-Fooks, was a long-term customer of Piddle Patch before she made an offer to acquire the company during the COVID shutdowns, however these discussions did not progress. Shortly after, City Doggo Ltd was registered at Companies House and started trading in November 2020.

In 2022 Piddle Patch featured on BBC Dragons’ Den. The national exposure and associated press coverage at the time significantly enhanced Piddle Patch’s brand recognition. The rising fame of the Piddle Patch brand was quickly exploited by City Doggo Ltd. The Piddle Patch trade mark was embedded across the City Doggo website in titles, such as “SHOP: Piddle Patch”, as well as in descriptions, meta-tags and alt-tags and across landing pages and blogs. Walker-Fooks added a photo of herself on to the website tagged ‘Piddle Patch founder with her dog.'

City Doggo Ltd registered and directed the domains piddlepatch.info and piddlepatch.shop to their own website. Slogans such as “Piddle Patch Dragons Den” were embedded in hidden text on the landing page. The Piddle Patch trademark was used as a hashtag across social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.

The Court heard evidence that Piddle Patch experienced a decline in traffic following City Doggo Ltd’s online activities. Judge Obodai commented “It had the desired effect because, as the Claimant pleaded, the result was that the first Defendant’s Website was ranked alongside the Claimant’s when consumers searched for PIDDLE PATCH.”

The defendants argued that their actions were so small, that they were ‘de minimis’ and not actionable. However the judge found otherwise, pronouncing on all counts that City Doggo Ltd had deliberately infringed on the trade mark and passed off its product as Piddle Patch. Judge Obodai said, “I find that all of this was a deliberate attempt by the Defendants to benefit commercially from the use of the Trade Mark. It was deliberate because of the history between Ms Sloan and Ms Walker-Fooks and the failed attempt to buy Ms Sloan’s business because she [Ms Sloan] changed her mind. Ms Walker-Fooks, therefore, knew exactly what she was doing and why”.

The case will now progress to a separate quantum trial to determine the extent of the damages.

Commenting on the judgement, founder of Piddle Patch, Rebecca Sloan, commented, “We are very happy with the result. I’d like to thank our direct access Barrister, Christy Rogers, who worked tirelessly to help us make our case to the Court. This was by no means a straightforward process.”

www.piddlepatch.com