It was a battle that pitted a dental practice in the suburbs of Cheltenham against the might of a global fashion corporation – all because of the grinning crocodile on the surgery’s sign.

And the dentists have won. For the second time in a year, a trademark judge has overruled the objections of the French clothing giant Lacoste to the crocodile symbol that adorns a private dentist’s surgery in Gloucestershire.

Lacoste had argued that the brand – even on a dental surgery – could be mistaken for its own crocodile emblem, causing confusion among shoppers and people who need a tooth filling.

The battle began in September 2004, when Tim Rumney and Simon Moore, the two principal practitioners at the surgery, tried to register their logo. They had been offering dentistry to people in the Gloucestershire town since the mid1980s. In 1991 they decided that this endeavour required a symbol.

To go with their name, The Dental Practice, which they felt accurately summed up the nature of their business, they were keen to find a simple design that conveyed the nature of their work.

“A lot of practices had quite modest logos – often just a sketch of their building,” Dr Moore told The Times yesterday. “We liked the crocodile design because of the natural association with teeth.”

Crocodiles are known for their well-kept incisors. “They have little birds that pick bits out of their teeth,” Dr Moore said.

However, when the two dentists got around to registering their logo, in the autumn of 2004, lawyers from Lacoste insisted that the crocodile had an altogether different association in the public’s mind – with their products.

Lacoste argued that the crocodile symbolised their range of sports and casual clothing, shoes, sunglasses, leather bags and perfume.

Even though the dentists’ crocodile was plain green with white teeth and their crocodile was side on, with gaping red jaws, Lacoste feared that the two logos could easily be confused and the consequent confusion would harm their business.

Like the crocodile in their logo, however, the dentists did not blink. They represented themselves against Lacoste’s formidable legal team at the first hearing in May at the Intellectual Property Office in Newport.

They were confident that the judge would find for their argument that shoppers looking for a camel hair jersey from Lacoste’s autumn collection were unlikely to confuse it with the need for root canal surgery. They also argued that their clients were unlikely to mistake their single-storey brick building, behind a car park and next to a petrol station, for a boutique selling Lacoste fashions.

At the end of this first hearing Judge Ann Corbett duly concluded that:

“Dental services are so different to clothing that . . . the average consumer of goods or services in question, who is reasonably well informed and reasonably observant and circumspect, would not make that mistake.”

Lacoste appealed against the decision and, late last year, the case was put to the UK Intellectual Property Office in London. The judge, Professor Ruth Annand, has now rejected the appeal.

Yesterday Dr Moore described the legal action as “very much using a sledgehammer to crack a nut”. He added: “We were very surprised such a big international company would feel threatened by one town dental practice.”

Lacoste was ordered to pay £1,000 towards the dental practice’s legal costs at the initial hearing. They have now been ordered to pay a further £450 towards the costs of the second hearing.

Business bites

The Dental Practice, Cheltenham

Check-up: £38.10
Scale and polish: £42.40 to £84.80
Small filling: £84.10 to £127.20
Crowns: £381.60 to £636
Veneers: £254.40 to £381.60
Oral B Triumph electric toothbrush: £67 (reduced from £140)

Lacoste

Men’s polo shirt: £55 (Selfridges)
Ladies’ polo shirt: £60 (Boutique Lacoste, London)
Men’s dark denim jeans: £105 (Selfridges)
Brown bomber jacket: £655 (sale price £417, Boutique Lacoste, Knightsbridge)

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