BRUSSELS, June 11 (Reuters) - Austrian judges should make a final ruling on whether Switzerland's Lindt & Spruengli AG can have the exclusive right to produce a chocolate rabbit, the European Union's top court said on Thursday.
German company Franz Hauswirth GmbH has sought to annul Lindt's trademark on a specific Easter bunny design by claiming the Swiss firm acted in "bad faith" when registering it. The German firm and others were making similar bunnies.
Lindt began making the bunnies in the 1950s. It started selling them in Austria in the mid-1990s, as did Hauswirth.
An Austrian court examining the case had asked the European Court of Justice for clarification, but received only general guidelines.
"The national court must take into consideration all the relevant factors specific to the particular case," the Luxembourg-based EU court said.
In particular, the Austrian court should take into account whether Lindt knew others were producing similar bunnies when it applied for the trademark and was seeking to push them out of the market.
In 2000, Lindt received a trademark for its bunny wrapped in golden aluminium foil, with a red ribbon and bell, and started to sue producers of similarly designed rabbits. (Writing by Marcin Grajewski; Editing by David Cowell)