SWISS CHOCOLATIER LINDT has been told it cannot stop other companies from selling chocolate bunnies with golden foil.

Germany’s highest civil court said the chocolatier could not register the bunny – with gold foil and a ribbon around its neck – as a trademark.

The company had been trying to seek protection for the product and its packaging after a German manufacturer, Confiserie Riegelein, began selling chocolate bunnies with similar packaging.

The ruling followed a defeat for Lindt at the European Court of Justice last year, when Europe’s top court upheld a decision by the EU’s trademarks body not to grant a trademark to the gold bunny.

In that case, the EU court said its bunny did not have enough distinctive features that made its product eligible for trademark protections.

Lindt had begun to seek trademark protections for its rabbit when an Austrian company began selling chocolate rabbits in gold foil similar to Lindt’s, though wearing a yellow ribbon around its neck instead of Lindt’s usual red.

Ironically, the ECJ ruling blocking Lindt from winning a European-wide trademark came after an Austrian court upheld its complaint – and ordered that the Austrian company, Hauswirth, stop selling its product.

The head of Confiserie Riegelein, which can continue to sell its own products in Germany following the most recent ruling, welcomed the decision.

“”The sitting gold-wrapped bunny has been a firm part of our offering for at least half a century,” Peter Riegelein, the head of the family-owned firm, told Deutsche Welle.

“The ruling has set a legal precedent in copyright law with which we are very satisfied.”