With its little red ribbon and golden bell, few would find a chocolate bunny a major threat. However, Lindt, the Swiss chocolate giant famous for the Easter special, has spent the past eight years pursuing smaller chocolatiers across Europe who it believes are burrowing in to its lucrative warren.
This morning, in the latest development in a dispute between Lindt and Hauswirth, a small Austrian chocolate maker that makes a similar chocolate bunny in gold foil but with no bell, Europe’s highest court ruled that an Austrian court must decide whether the Swiss group acted in “bad faith” when it trademarked the product in 2001.
Lindt first made its bunny in the 1950s and now sells tens of millions every year. However, concerned that rivals were copying its design, the group got a trademark for the bunny in 2001.
As such, when Hauswirth, which claims to have also been making the bunnies since the 1950s, started marketing bunnies as a new product in 2003, Lindt took legal action and the case has been bouncing around the Austrian courts ever since.
In its defence, Hauswirth has argued that Lindt acquired its trademark in bad faith, knowing that similar products already existed, and is trying to use its dominant market position to kill off competition.
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To help it make its decision the Austrian Supreme Court asked the European Court of Justice to rule on whether knowing, or being in a position to know, that a trademarked subject is similar to one already being used by a competitor constituted bad faith.
In response, the ECJ said the national court must take into consideration all relevant factors specific to the particular case, without giving any specific opinion on whether Lindt’s trademark was obtained in bad faith.
Lindt has gone after makers of similar chocolate bunnies all over Europe since getting its trademark in 2001, with varying success.