Just in time for Easter:
Swiss chocolatier Lindt & Sprungli has lost the latest round in its long battle to use trademark law to secure its exclusive right to sell a certain style of chocolate bunnies in wrapped in gold foil (what one news report in the confection trade called a “3D seated gold bunny.” The German Federal Court of Justice rejected an appeal by Lindt in a case brought against the German company Confiserie Riegelein. The Lindt goldbunny is not, it appears, subject to trademark protection. News reports suggest, to borrow the conceptual framework used in American trademark cases, that the gold bunny design is generic, rather than distinctive.
- Reuters reports here
- Confectionery News reports here
- (Confectionery News reported on the failure of Lindt’s earlier effort to obtain a Community Trademark for the goldbunny in the EU.)
- Lindt’s gold bunny website (URL: lindtgoldbunny.com)
- Lindt’s UK gold bunny website (URL: Â http://www.goldbunny.co.uk/)
- Confiserie Riegelein’s gold bunny page (the accused infringing gold bunny appears to be identified as Gold Bunny “David”)