Seven years after Dave Griffiths beat French Connection in a decade-long copyright dispute, he still calls up organisations he thinks might have had their trademarks infringed by the fashion brand.

During the London Olympics he noticed that the company’s reworked T-shirts with swimmers and shot putters having sex seemed to bear a striking similarity to the official logo.

“We are at stalemate, but if I see an infringement I will phone that company,” he explains.

French Connection still refuses to acknowledge Griffiths.

“They are in their ivory tower. They just see I have lost them a lot of money.”

His estimate is £3.5 million. After phoning companies with brands whose logos French Connection infringed – Pepsi, Ford, Mars and KFC, with a design reading “Finger lookin’ good – FCUK” – Griffiths forced the withdrawal of T-shirts and brochures from French Connection shops around the world.

Since the dispute, the comedian has become an expert in trademark law and the story is currently being filmed for a documentary.

“My academic side is not brilliant,” he says.

“I have an HND in tourism and I failed maths O-level seven times. But I have a skill for law and finding what is wrong with it, because more laws mean less freedom.”

It all goes back to a short set at The Comedy Store in London early in his career. Griffiths thought it would be funny to get his own top made for the event. It read, “CNUT – French Correction.”

“I’d said to a friend two weeks before it would be so much fun to make a T-shirt with CNUT on it. He said brilliant. So I did it. I don’t know why I’m still friends with him.”

A few weeks later he received a cease and desist legal letter from the company claiming breach of copyright and suggesting he could end up in jail.

He believes a French Connection employee was in the audience and reported the T-shirt.

“They made a mistake in the letter they sent me. They made false allegations. I worked out that what they were saying was scare tactics rather than being exact law.”

He couldn’t believe the T-shirt infringed the company’s brand.

“I wasn’t allowed ‘Frog correction’ or ‘French coercion’. They seemed to own everything and anything and I couldn’t see why I was not allowed anything at all.”

That’s when he spotted that French Connection was using other brands’ logos without licence.

“What really made me fight them was they were telling me not to do something when they were infringing on loads of other trademarks.”

He found French Connection had used 25 companies’ logos.

“I spotted a T-shirt in a brochure with a logo that looked like Ford’s, with FCUK in a Ford logo on a T-shirt, so out of the kindness of my heart I phoned Ford and told them of this infringement. Ford immediately had them withdrawn.”

The dedication took its hold as the battle wore on. Griffiths stopped doing comedy for five years. He withdrew from his social life. He’d forget simple things such as when to pay his council tax. He spent all his time trying to get to people in “faceless” corporations who dealt with the branding.

“Someone at one show said I should have had therapy. I couldn’t let it go. I was like a dog with a bone.”

He calls it a “story of revenge” rather than anti-corporation.

“I don’t necessarily hate big corporations, but if they are going to tell you not to do something and they are clearly doing it themselves then revenge is sweet.”

C U In Court at Laughing Horse @ Caroline Of Brunswick, Ditchling Road, Brighton, Friday, May 23, to Monday, May 26 Starts 7.45pm, £5. Call 01273 917272