Lindt Wins The Battle Of The Bears After Haribo Mounts Legal Challenge Over Trademark

Lindt Wins The Battle Of The Bears After Haribo Mounts Legal Challenge Over Trademark 

The world popular Lindt teddy has successfully fought off a legal challenge from Haribo’s golden bear. A German court has dismissed claims that it violated a trademark and has held that the Swiss chocolatiers foil-wrapped teddy is not a copy of its rival’s gummy bears. 

The dispute that had been running since 2012 saw Haribo accuse Lindt of copying its gold bear trademark by the launch of their foil-wrapped teddy. Haribo who have been making gummy bear sweets since the 1920’s claimed that the Lindt teddy was an infringement of its “Gold Bear” logo, which is colourfully illustrated on packaging as images of a golden bear wearing a red ribbon.  They argued that the products were too similar and as such it would cause confusion among consumers, despite the fact that Lindt’s bears are made of chocolate and Haribo’s gummy bears are a jelly sweet.

 In defence Lindt argued that they did not copy the golden bear and that in fact its bears were a variation on its Easter rabbit chocolates. Both are wrapped in gold foil with a red ribbon. Whereas Haribo’s gummy bear depiction’s consist of a yellow cartoon bear with a red ribbon around its neck. 

Haribo emerged victorious in the first round of the battle after a German regional court in December 2012 banned future sales of Lindt’s bears. Lindt subsequently appealed this decision and an appeal court rejected the initial ruling stating that the two products cannot be confused with one another. 

The dispute has now been brought to an end after the federal court has upheld the appeal court’s ruling. 

Following this ruling Lindt can continue to sell the chocolate the bears that were first introduced in 2011. 

In a statement the federal court has stated “Lindt’s sale of bear-shaped chocolates wrapped in a golden foil with a red ribbon is neither a violation of Haribo’s Gold Bear trademark nor an illegal imitation of the fruit- gum products”.

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

The federal court said it wanted to avoid the danger of “product design monopolisation” in the area of three-dimensional goods. 

Lindt welcomed the ruling and in a statement added that it would “continue to delight all Lindt chocolate lovers with the Lindt Teddy”. 

An option that may be available to Haribo is appealing to the European court of justice; this would depend on the detail of the federal court’s ruling. Haribo said it would examine the ruling before deciding on its next steps. 

A spokesman for Haribo stated “We regret the verdict of the federal supreme court and consider that its content is not correct. In our opinion Lindt is using our brand awareness and our investment in the Goldbären brand in order to strengthen the perception of its own product among consumers. The brand name Goldbären is the property of Haribo.”

Fozia Cheychi