Gummy bear maker loses ‘Gold Bear’ battle

Haribo said the Swiss chocolatier’s gold foil-clad, red-bowed chocolate bears violated its “gold bear” logo, which can be found on the packets of the brightly coloured fruit gum candies .

The Swiss chocolate giant Lindt is enjoying the sweet scent of victory over its rival Haribo after Germany’s supreme court ruled in its favour in the so-called “battle of the bears”.

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.

A German court initially ruled in favour of Haribo but an appeal court threw out that verdict, finding that the chocolate teddies could not be mistaken for Haribo’s jelly candies .

Lindt argued that its gold bear was styled on its Easter bunnies, which are wrapped in gold foil with a ribbon and small bell around their necks. The case then moved to the Federal Court of Justice, Germany’s highest legal instance.

First sold in their current form in 1967, about 100 million of the bears are now produced every day. The 2-centimetres (0.78-inches) tall gummy bear has become the best-known product of Haribo, a company created in 1920 in the western city of Bonn.

Lindt insisted its chocolate bears were based on its chocolate bunnies, a product it had been selling since the 1950s.

Lindt introduced its chocolate teddy in 2011. It sought to convince the court that the two products were too similar, the BBC reported.