Chanel sees off Coco logo

Cosmetics giant Chanel won a court battle yesterday with the daughter of Body Shop founder Anita Roddick over a rude logo.

Samantha Roddick's sex shop, which sells whips and harnesses, was trying to use a Coco name on its products.

The Chanel brand includes perfumes and fashion accessories named after the company's founder, Gabrielle 'Coco' Chanel.

But the shop in London's Covent Garden, run by the 33-year-old daughter of Body Shop founder Anita Roddick, used the brand Coco de Mer.

The shop said the name referred to a rare palm nut found only on two islands in the Seychelles that looks, well, naughty.

Mr Justice Patten, sitting in the High Court yesterday, had to admit that its two lobes resembled a 'female bottom and genitalia'.

As eyebrows were raised in the court, he said Ms Roddick had assured him the nut had significance that was both 'spiritual and sexual' - and was a 'potent and particularly feminine symbol of fertility'. Ms Roddick earlier told the court that her shop was not smutty but an 'erotic emporium'.

Chanel director Martin Hamilton said he did not mind if Coco de Mer products were sold in a sex shop but he was worried they would appear beside Chanel products in big stores.

The judge said the trade marks authority was right to refuse to register the Coco de Mer brand as the public would be confused.

He said: 'The average consumer may well assume goods bearing the Coco de Mer mark are simply a brand of those marked Coco.'