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🥐 How a toy croissant landed Next in court
Idin Sabahipour
June 04, 2026
Contents
If you take just one thing from this email...
Jellycat – the British toy brand known for its soft, cute characters – has sued Next, Hamleys and Bessie London for selling products it says look too much like its own.
One of its claims is based on passing off, a legal right that needs no formal registration at all to come into effect. To succeed on this basis, a brand has to show three things:
→ 1. That customers genuinely associate the look with them
→ 2. That the other seller sold something likely to confuse those customers, and
→ 3. That the confusion does damage
It's a reminder that some of the most valuable IP protection in the UK isn't written down anywhere. It builds up over years, as customers come to link a particular style with its creator.
EDITOR’S RAMBLE 🗣
I’m excited for today’s newsletter for a couple of reasons.
Firstly, I’m writing it from Medellín, Colombia – I’m here for my cousin’s wedding.
In a Colombian coffee shop surrounded by beautiful mountains
Secondly, because it’s an IP law dispute, specifically, a lookalike battle. I always find these fun to cover because they’re so visual.
You instantly get a sense of how similar you feel the copycat product is – and then you get to work through the legal tests to see if the law agrees.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy this one!
– Idin
P.S. If you’ve got a vacation scheme coming up, here are my uncommon tips on converting your vac scheme to a TC (link gives you instant access).
FEATURED REPORT 📰
🥐 How a croissant doorstop landed Next in court
What’s going on here?
This week, Jellycat – the viral British soft toy brand – filed three separate High Court claims against:
Next, the UK fashion and homeware retailer
Hamleys, the famous London toy shop, and
Bessie London, an online bag-charm seller.
Jellycat says each defendant has infringed its intellectual property (IP) rights.
🤔 What are IP rights?
IP rights protect things like creations, inventions, brand identifiers, product designs, and confidential business information. The idea is that if someone invests time, skill, or money into something valuable, the law should sometimes stop others from unfairly copying or exploiting it.
Different IP rights protect different things:
→ Copyright protects creative works like books, music, drawings, photographs and films.
→ Patents protect new inventions, like a new medicine formula or piece of technology.
→ Trade marks protect brand identifiers, like names, logos, and slogans.
→ Design rights protect how products look, including their shape, decoration or overall appearance.
→ Trade secrets protect valuable private information, like recipes, formulas or business plans.
Each right has its own rules on what it covers, how to get it, and what you have to prove in court to enforce it.
Why is Jellycat suing these other companies?
We don’t know Jellycat’s full argument yet. The Particulars of Claim – the document setting out what Jellycat says each defendant did wrong – aren't public.
But we can guess what the problem is. Jellycat’s toys have a very recognisable style: soft, slightly absurd plush characters, often based on everyday objects, with tiny limbs, stitched faces and a cute (but deadpan) expression.
Take Jellycat’s Amuseables Croissant for example 👇️
If other sellers offer similar looking products, for example, Next’s Natural Velvet Croissant Doorstop 👇️
Or Bessie London’s Croissant Handbag Charm 👇️
... then Jellycat may argue that customers are being led to think those products are connected with Jellycat (or that the sellers are unfairly benefiting from the brand identity Jellycat has built).
The same concern may apply more broadly where sellers use a similar food-plush format, like Hamleys’ own food-plush range 👇️
I’d post the source, but it seems Hamleys has removed this from its site!
This Hamleys one is problematic in a different way. That’s because Hamleys is an authorised seller of Jellycat toys, so Hamleys and Jellycat products are often displayed side by side.
What IP rights is Jellycat relying on for this claim?
Jellycat is claiming that its IP rights have been infringed in two main ways.
🔖 1. They’re claiming their registered trade mark has been infringed. A trade mark is a sign customers use to recognise a brand. It could be a name, logo, slogan, character name, or sometimes even a shape.
Businesses can register trade marks with the UK Intellectual Property Office, and those registrations are publicly searchable. For example, Jellycat has a public UK trade mark registration for its logo under trade mark number UK00004022687 👇️
A registered trade mark gives strong protection. If another seller uses a sign too close to Jellycat's, shoppers might think the products come from the same business or are officially connected. That confusion – or even just piggybacking on the brand's reputation to boost sales – can amount to trade mark infringement.
Here, Jellycat appears to be claiming that products from Next, Hamleys and Bessie London cross that line.
🧸 2. They’re also claiming the other brands are “passing off” as Jellycat. Passing off is different from trade mark infringement because it doesn’t need a public registration. Instead, it protects the reputation and the “customer pull” a company has built through doing business (lawyers call this “goodwill”).
To win a passing off claim, a business usually has to show three things:
It has goodwill
That the other seller presented its product in a way likely to make customers think there's a connection between it and the original product
That the confusion would damage the original brand
Jellycat may be arguing that Next, Hamleys and Bessie London are not just selling similar plush products, but presenting them in a way that risks suggesting a connection with Jellycat and damaging the goodwill that Jellycat has built.
🤔 Is this the only way Jellycat has tried to protect its IP rights?
Nope. In 2024, Jellycat sued Aldi over a £4 stuffed dragon that allegedly copied Jellycat's £27 "Dexter Dragon".
But that case was framed differently. Jellycat relied on registered design rights, rather than the trade mark and passing off routes it's using now.
Registered design rights protect the appearance of one specific product. Jellycat's registered "Dexter Dragon" design number is 90063566970022 (you can look it up here). The case ended without a public judgment – Aldi denied liability but agreed to stop selling the dragon after Jellycat made contact, which brought the proceedings to a close.
So the Aldi case was narrower. Jellycat was essentially saying that Aldi's dragon gives the same overall visual impression as its registered Dexter Dragon design.
The new claims against Next, Hamleys and Bessie London look broader. They seem to focus less on one toy and more on Jellycat's wider brand identity – the cute, deadpan, plush style that customers associate with Jellycat.
Why do lookalike battles keep happening?
Jellycat isn’t the first brand to fight over a lookalike product. UK brands have repeatedly gone to court over lookalike products.
These cases often play out the same way: one brand creates a successful product, packaging style, or way of selling something. Then another seller brings out a cheaper or similar version that benefits from the attention the first brand already built.
Dispute | What happened | Outcome |
|---|---|---|
🍋 Jif Lemon v ReaLemon | Jif sold lemon juice in a plastic lemon-shaped container. ReaLemon tried to sell lemon juice in a similar lemon-shaped container. | Jif won on passing off. The court found the lemon-shaped container had become exclusively associated with Jif in the UK, and that ReaLemon’s near-identical container was likely to deceive shoppers. |
🐧 Penguin v Puffin | United Biscuits sold Penguin chocolate biscuits. Asda launched Puffin bars with a similar name and get-up. | Penguin won on passing off. The court found the packaging was too similar overall, even though "Puffin" and "Penguin" were different enough that the registered trade mark claim was dismissed. |
🍸 M&S v Aldi light-up gin | M&S sold festive gin bottles with lights and gold flakes, protected by registered designs. Aldi sold similar festive light-up gin bottles. | M&S won on registered design infringement. Aldi’s bottles created the same overall impression as M&S’s protected designs. |
🍺 Thatchers v Aldi cloudy lemon cider | Thatchers sold cloudy lemon cider with lemon-heavy packaging. Aldi sold a cheaper own-brand cider with similar visual cues. | Thatchers won on trade mark infringement – but only on appeal. Thatchers had lost at first instance, but the Court of Appeal overturned that decision, finding Aldi had taken unfair advantage of Thatchers' trade mark by riding on its reputation. |
👕 Rihanna v Topshop | Topshop sold a T-shirt with a photo of Rihanna on it, without her permission. The issue was whether shoppers would think Rihanna had approved or endorsed the product. | Rihanna won on passing off. The court found that, given her prior commercial association with Topshop, shoppers were likely to think the T-shirt was authorised by Rihanna, damaging the goodwill she had built around her image and fashion ventures. |
If the Jellycat claims reach court, Jellycat will try to prove the legal ingredients of its trade mark and passing off claims. The court's job will be to decide whether this is unlawful borrowing from Jellycat's brand, or fair competition in the wider soft toy market.
Which law firms are involved?
Stephenson Harwood is advising Jellycat. CG Law is reported as acting for Bessie London.
The legal advisers for Next and Hamleys have not been publicly disclosed.
How can you use this in your applications?
Here are some ways you can use the insights from this story in your law firm applications.
Insight | How to use it in your applications |
|---|---|
IP law isn’t just for scientists. Most people associate IP with patents and technical inventions – new medicines, engineering processes, software. But trade marks and passing off (the rights at the centre of the Jellycat case) exist entirely to protect how a brand feels, not how a product works. IP is as much about logos, packaging and personality as it is about technical inventions. | If you're asked "why IP?" and you don't have a STEM background, don't worry. You can say you're drawn to the commercial side of IP – protecting the trade marks, packaging and brand identity that make a company (like Jellycat) worth more than a lookalike. Maybe use the Jellycat case as a live example of trade mark and passing off work to show you understand what a large part of an IP team actually does day to day. |
Ideas can be protected in multiple ways. Jellycat sued Aldi over a specific toy using registered design rights. Against Next, Hamleys and Bessie London, it's using trade marks and passing off instead – a broader approach than going after one product. The threat is similar – but the legal tool changes to fit the facts. | This is what IP lawyers actually do – they pick the right tool for the situation. A design right protects one product's look. A trade mark protects the brand across everything it sells. Passing off covers reputation that was never formally registered. In interviews, discuss how IP lawyers need to match the tool to the problem (and name the different tools). If a client is worried about one copied product, maybe enforcing design rights is the correct route. If a rival is trading off their whole brand identity, that could need arguments based on trade marks and passing off. |
Brand is a commercial advantage – and it can be lost (without protection). A brand communicates quality, origin and identity. That's why customers pay more for Jellycat than a lookalike, and why a competitor selling something that "feels like Jellycat" erodes that advantage, even without copying a single word or logo. Protecting brands is protecting market position. | Understanding this shows you understand exactly the value a good IP lawyer brings. A brand built over years can be drained by a rival who copies the vibe of it. And every sale they steal away from your client comes straight out of their pocket. When a client comes to you worried a rival is copying their look, your job is to work out whether that look can be protected, and to enforce it before the advantage leaks away. Understand that this is your real role in commercial law. It lets you show an interviewer that your aim as a legal adviser should be to help a business, not just apply the rules. |
IN OTHER NEWS 🗞
🤖 Kirkland & Ellis is spending $500 million (£370 million) to build its own AI platform. The world's largest law firm by revenue plans to fund the multi-year build from its own profits. Chair Jon Ballis told the Financial Times the tool will capture the "collective intelligence" of its lawyers. It's a bet against third-party AI tools like Harvey and Legora (which are used by over 1,000 firms between them).
👜 Burberry has pushed its net zero target back by a decade. The British fashion brand delayed its “climate positive” goal from 2040 to 2050, saying its revised target was "a pragmatic response to external factors". It joins other large companies that are watering down their climate pledges – including Unilever, Shell and BP.
🔍 The CMA (the UK’s competition regulator) has ordered Google to give publishers more control over how their content appears in AI search results. It's a world-first move by a competition regulator. Under the new rules, publishers can block their content from features like Google's AI Overviews – the AI summaries that answer users' questions before they click through without disappearing from normal Google search results. Google has nine months to make the changes.
OPEN TABS 🌐
🎧 Audio round: Play Geoguessr but for radio – listen to a live stream and work out where in the world it's broadcasting from
🛂 Travel: Compare passports from around the world to see how powerful each one is and where it can take you visa-free
🖼️ Art: Here’s what museums that aren't the Louvre consider “their own Mona Lisa” (their most iconic pieces) – in London, it’s this portrait of William Shakespeare 👇️
STUFF THAT MIGHT HELP YOU 👌
💻️ Free application advice: Check out my YouTube channel for actionable tips and an insight into the lifestyle of a commercial lawyer in London.
📁 Law firm application bank: A growing library of real, verified successful applications for training contracts and vacation schemes. Helpful if you want to learn from others who answered the same questions you’re stuck on.
📝 Write winning law firm applications: A practical course to help you write clearer applications, faster. Avoid common mistakes, learn how to structure answers properly, and get lifetime access to future updates. Try it for 14 days, risk free.
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