Family firm stands its ground in row with Ordnance Survey over ‘copying’ picnic rug

ORDNANCE Survey is used to charting difficult terrain. But now it has entered rocky waters of its own after being accused of copying the design of a small British business.

The government-owned agency is alleged to have replicated the design of a small, family-owned British design company that makes picnic blankets.

Guy Eaton, 55, and Megan Lomax, 52, the owners of Rubbastuff and its waterproof PACMAT picnic blanket, first worked with Ordnance Survey in 2017, after they approached the agency with the idea of putting its maps on their picnic blankets for sale on its website.

At the time it was agreed that if Ordnance Survey funded manufacturing, Rubbastuff would make the products using the mapping and then ship them wholesale to the warehouse facility.

In 2018, Mr Eaton was working on a large Ordnance Survey PACMAT order when he received a call from the agency’s procurement department, saying it needed to go through a procurement process due to the size of the order.

In the summer of 2020, Mr Eaton and Ms Lomax heard that Ordnance Survey had awarded a tender for another company to produce all of the Ordnance Survey branded products for its online store, including its picnic blankets.

He says Rubbastuff was not informed of this tender until after it was awarded.

Then, in January 2021, Mr Eaton says he checked the Ordnance Survey website and found that the company had put a range of picnic blankets live – which he alleges “for all intents and purposes were identical to our product”.

“So we ordered one, and not only had they replicated the design but also the fabric and the weights of our fabrics,” Mr Eaton adds.

A product that Mr Eaton alleges was “identical” to Rubbastuff ’s PACMAT, which had its “signature” buttonholes in the corners, embroidered in contrasting colours, appeared on the website.

Rubbastuff is calling for Ordnance Survey to acknowledge its product design and pay a licence for its use, or sell something “totally different” from its own product if it is not interested in procuring Rubbastuff ’s products again.

A spokesman for Ordnance Survey said: “We continue to partner with Rubbastuff and their products are available to purchase through our OS shop.”