Chocolate Bunny Battle

The Wall Street Journal released an article today on a high fueled, no holds bar case battling it out in Europe’s High Court: Chocoladefabriken Lindt & Sprüngli AG of Switzerland’s pending patent case on their (if wasn’t before it is now) infamous chocolate bunny. That’s right, lawyers and the highest court in Europe will determine today if Lindt can in fact, patent a chocolate bunny shape. The full article goes into Lindt’s defense, it’s hopping mad hunt to quash imitators (or even those that come within a whisper close) and what this will mean for the European chocolate candy industry.

Personally, I think you should be able to patent an overall design (which is a patent they received in 2001) for their Easter Bunny, a gold foil wrapped chocolate bunny, squatting on its haunches, ears up with a little bell tied to a red ribbon bow around it’s neck. The issue is whether or not they can trademark the squatting on it’s haunches, ear up shape and thus thwart other chocolatiers from also using that shape with their bunnies.

It’s Rabbit Season for Lindt Chocolate

The chocolate candy bunny business is serious business, Lindt has been on a mission all across Europe to protect it’s “intellectual property.”
Earlier this year, Lindt won an injunction against Hauswirth of Austria, who gave away their remaining 300,000 chocolate bunnies to charity.

Terravita of Poland was allowed to continue selling their chocolate bunnies as a court ruled that it doesn’t infringe because the bunny has “Terravita” stamped on its haunch and the ribbon is printed onto foil.

Still pending in the German appeals courts is the Riegelein chocolate bunny, a battle that began in 2006.

Similar patent shape cases have tried and failed, Lego blocks, convex sided bars of soap and rectangular shaped dishwasher soap tablets for example.

Will Lindt succeed? I actually hope not. A rabbit sitting on it’se haunches with ears at a attention is the cutest pose of all and Lindt shouldn’t be the only ones able to capture that in smooth milk chocolate!