World | Haribo goes to war against the “stuffed bears” of a start-up

The conflict erupted because of the presumed resemblance between the gummy bears produced by this Basque company, in the northeast of Spain, and the delicacies which the world-famous confectioner made his logo. “As usual for such cases, Haribo has launched legal proceedings to protect the registered trademarks,” said a spokesperson for the company.

“The sky fell on my head,” says Ander Méndez, CEO of Ositos con alcohol (Oursons avec alcool), when this 24-year-old engineer received a formal notice from his lawyers two weeks ago. Haribo. This document maintains that there is “a great similarity” between the two confectioneries and that the “stuffed cubs” infringe the intellectual property rights of Haribo.

The German group founded 100 years ago in Bonn, however, offers an “amicable” solution to the three young Basque entrepreneurs, but demands drastic measures. The same letter asked them, among other things, to stop producing and selling “any product under the symbol in dispute”, to abandon their trademark registered in Spain and to agree to “transfer the management and ownership of the domain ositosconalcohol.com “in Haribo.

“We do no harm to their brand and (the bears) are not alike”, larger than a few millimeters of those of Haribo, indignant Ander Méndez, who accuses the German company of wanting to “appropriate “their creation. He and his associates are currently investigating the response with a lawyer, although they “do not have many resources to conduct a lawsuit” with a large company that claims to reserve the right to initiate “all necessary legal actions” if the three young people do not follow their instructions.

Eight cubs = a glass of wine

Ander Méndez recognizes that they are “terrorized” in front of a big company which “can sink (them) if it wants”, although he assures that he will continue the production and the marketing of his “stuffed cubs”, because “we see that people like it. ” Created in January 2019, the start-up sells its products on the internet and in bars and nightclubs in Spain. Alongside Ander Méndez, Julen Justa, 24, also has an engineering degree while Tamar Gigolashvili, 25, studied law and management.

The three young entrepreneurs quickly received innovation aid from the Basque town hall in Getxo, a coastal town near Bilbao. This aid then sparked a first controversy, the city’s opposition politicians denouncing an incitement to alcohol consumption by young people. Sold in cylindrical metal boxes, stamped with the Ositos & Co logo, these treats contain 15 degrees of alcohol and come in five colors and flavors: rum-pineapple, gin-strawberry, vodka-orange, whiskey-cola and tequila- lemon.

A glass of wine is equivalent to more or less 8 bears, and a gin and tonic between 15 and 17, details Ander Méndez. Haribo had already sued the Swiss chocolate maker Lindt in 2012, considering that its chocolate bears wrapped in golden paper were an imitation of its cubs.

But after three years of litigation, the highest court in Germany has ruled Haribo wrong. Two centimeters tall, the Haribo gelled “Goldbären” (golden bears), created in 1922, are produced and sold on all continents.

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