Aldi's dupe snacks busted again as court doubles down

Retail giant Aldi has lost its appeal against a landmark copyright ruling brought by toddler snack brand Little Bellies, with the Full Court of the Federal Court not only upholding the original decision but extending it to cover two additional products.

The ruling takes the total number of Aldi Mamia products found to infringe Little Bellies' design copyright from three to five.

Little Bellies co-founder and managing director Clive Sher welcomed the decision, calling it an "important vindication" for brand owners who invest heavily in their intellectual property.

"Taking on a global retailer is not something any independent business does lightly. We pursued this because we believed the principle mattered, and we hope this decision gives other Australian brands greater confidence that their creative work and brand equity can and should be protected," Sher said.

The matter has been returned to the primary judge for the determination of damages.

READ MORE: 'Dupes' have taken over the world; how has has that been allowed?

Background to the case

Little Bellies, an Australian-founded baby and toddler snack brand, scored a landmark victory against the supermarket giant in 2024 when the Federal Court found three products in Aldi's Mamia toddler snack range infringed its design copyright.

The case was considered novel at the time, marking the first copyright infringement claim brought against Aldi in Australia. It followed Aldi's redesign of its toddler snack range, with evidence in the original proceedings showing Little Bellies had been used as a benchmark during the design process.

Aldi's Mamia baby puffs range first went on sale in 2021. Hampden Holdings, which owns the branding for the Baby Bellies, Little Bellies and Mighty Bellies snack ranges, launched legal action against Aldi in 2022 over 11 products, after having already lodged formal complaints.

In the 2024 trial judgment, the court found Aldi had followed the "architecture" of the Hampden products. However, using a competitor's product for inspiration does not necessarily amount to copyright infringement — it is a question of degree and fact.

The trial judgment compared the degree of objective similarity between each product systematically, using a checklist-like approach, before assessing whether the identified elements amounted to a breach of copyright law. The court found Aldi liable for three products.

Aldi appealed original copyright decision

Aldi appealed the 2024 ruling, while Little Bellies lodged a cross-appeal arguing the judgment should have extended to additional products within the Mamia range.

In the appeal proceedings, the Full Court — a panel of three Federal Court judges — found the trial judge's approach was flawed because it had not engaged in a side-by-side comparison of the alleged Aldi duplicates of the Hampden products. The Full Court said the focus needed to be on the overall significance of original elements found in Hampden's packaging, and, taken together, the extent to which a particular Aldi product's packaging was similar.

While Aldi won part of its appeal, the company went "slightly backwards overall," according to the judgment. The Full Court upheld the infringement findings on the original three products and found that two additional Mamia products also breached Little Bellies' copyright. 

The court also upheld the finding that Aldi was liable for additional damages.

Aldi has used the dupe, or "lookalike," strategy successfully for decades. However, the approach is not without risk, particularly under Australian copyright law.