Lindt Teddy Defeats Haribo Bear In Court

Lindt says it based its chocolate teddy on the bunny it is famous for – and not on rival Haribo’s trademarked golden bear logo.

The Lindt teddy has seen off a legal challenge from Haribo’s golden bear after a court dismissed claims that it violated a trademark.

The ruling in Germany means Lindt can continue to sell the chocolate bears it introduced in 2011.

The Switzerland-based firm said it did not copy the golden bear, but simply drew on the styling of the golden bunnies which are already among its best-known products.

The chocolate maker heavily promotes the bunnies, even setting up life-sized statues outside its factory by Lake Zurich and rolling out gold-painted, red-striped Smart cars decorated with golden ears around Easter.

The German Federal Court said terms such as “teddy”, “chocolate bear” or “chocolate teddy” could be applied to the product just as well as “gold bear”.

“It’s not sufficient that the trademarked word is just one of several obvious names to describe the product form,” the court said in a statement.

If the claim was granted without meeting stricter criteria this would create the danger of “product design monopolisation” in the arena of three-dimensional product forms, the statement added.

The decision comes a week after the European Court of Justice rejected a request from Nestle to trademark the shape of its four-fingered KitKat bar in Britain.