Haribo has lost a long running legal battle against Lindt after a court in Germany ruled that the Swiss chocolate maker is not infringing Haribo’s classic 'gold bear' trademark.
Bonn based Haribo has been producing the gummy Goldbär since the sixties while the golden foil-wrapped ‘Lindt Teddy’ was first introduced for the 2011 Christmas season.
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In 2012, Haribo had argued that the Lindt Teddy is a 3D representation of its gummy bears and consumers might mistake it for one of its products, starting a sweet teddy war with Lindt & Spruengli.
However, the Swiss company claimed that its teddy bear-shaped chocolates were inspired by its best-selling Easter Gold Bunny, a golden foil wrapped bunny with a red ribbon and a little bell, first produced in 1952.
A German court had initially ruled in favour of Haribo in 2012 but an appeal court threw out that verdict last year, finding that the chocolate teddies could not be mistaken for Haribo's much smaller jelly sweets
"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 ruled. This judgement is final.
