Toblerone’s Owner Takes A Rival Chocolate Bar To Geometry Court

Mondelēz, the owner of Toblerone, is suing British vegan chocolate maker Catherine’s Originals in London’s high court. It alleges that the smaller company’s O’bar infringes its trademarks and amounts to passing off. The disputed bar has segments with rounded, semi-oval humps; Catherine’s says the design reflects an O for Originals and denies the claims.

A court will have to resolve the dispute. I would merely like to observe that we have reached the stage of capitalism where chocolate needs a lawyer to explain why it is bumpy.

This used to be the easy part of buying a snack. Does it taste good? Can I afford it? Will it survive the journey home without becoming a warm brown puddle in the bag? Now there is a fourth question: have these contours been cleared by counsel?

Please do not break off a piece until we establish whether you are altering the evidence.

Mondelēz says Toblerone’s shape has been a distinctive feature of its brand since 1929. It says it has a responsibility to protect its intellectual property and spent months trying to resolve this matter constructively with Catherine’s Originals before filing the case.

Months. Of constructive discussion. About the hills on a chocolate bar.

Imagine being the person who has to summarize progress at the end of that meeting. We remain some distance apart on the hump. The parties have not achieved a mutually acceptable hill. A further exchange of topographical correspondence may be required.

Somewhere in this process, highly trained adults will have to consider whether a piece of chocolate has suspicious shoulders.

I am looking at the innocent bowl of snacks on my desk with new suspicion. That biscuit has corners. Who authorized the corners? Is there a licensing arrangement? Must I eat it in the dark so nobody can accuse me of benefiting from the silhouette?

And this is not the first chocolate-landform confrontation. Poundland delayed its Twin Peaks bar in 2017 after a legal warning from Mondelēz. It eventually relaunched after changing the packaging colors and the bar’s shape.

Two humps, one dispute, a remodeled snack. Somewhere, a chocolate mold has had more legal supervision than a suspiciously expensive government contract.

I could accept that the confectionery landscape is complicated and go make a cup of tea. Except—wait. Toblerone itself had to remove the Matterhorn from its packaging in 2023 after some production moved outside Switzerland and the packaging ran afoul of Swiss marketing restrictions.

The company could keep its famous chocolate shape. It could not keep that particular mountain on the wrapper under those circumstances.

Oh, that is beautiful. The snack has a protected identity. The actual mountain has residency requirements. We are defending the intellectual territory of little edible peaks while the real peak has told the wrapper to pack its fucking bags.

Who handles the final approval here, a trademark lawyer with crampons? Does the bar need a surveyor before it can enter the duty-free shop?

I wanted chocolate. A small, uncomplicated reward for making it through the day. Apparently I have wandered into an Alpine border commission with nougat.

Fine. I'll have the broken bits at the bottom of the packet.

Let counsel establish the shape of those.