Lindt have been asked to recently defend its Community trade mark rights to its famous chocolate Easter bunny wrapped in gold foil which also has a red ribbon and bell around its neck. An Austrian competitor of Lindt's has claimed that it acquired its EU-wide protection in bad faith at a hearing this week. Lindt argued back that the trade mark for the famous Easter bunny was gained "honestly and fairly".

The Austrian competitor brought the claims because Lindt's trade mark is being used to prevent the Austrian company from making products which are allegedly confusingly similar to the gold Easter bunny. Lindt learnt of their competitors bunny at a fair in Switzerland where the competitor presented them as a 'new product'. Litigation was inevitable after Hauswirth rejected Lindt's lawyers suggestion that Hauswirth adopt bronze wrapping instead of gold and a green ribbon instead of red.

Lindt's lawyer said "here is a product that's been around for some 50 years and sold about 20 million times in the EU in the year 2000, when we applied for the trade mark the company acted in good faith when we sought the right to exclude the use of that same product by others."

The outcome is expected in about a year's time.