The German High Court has just ruled that the Lindt chocolate teddy (imagine Lindt chocolate bunny in the shape of a teddy) does not infringe Harribo’s GOLDBAREN (gold bear) word marks. We all know that 3 dimensional products can infringe a 2 dimensional word mark, but only if the 3D product is as close to the word mark as it could possibly be. In this case, the court held that even though the Lindt bear was a “gold bear” the Harribo word mark GOLDBAREN had acquired its distinctiveness in relation to gummy bears and that the Lindt bear was simply an obvious extension of the existing Lindt product range. The additions of the LINDT trademark and the Lindt red bow helped the courts form the view that this was not a trade mark infringement. I think most of us could have come to that conclusion in the length of time it takes to scoff one quickly.
