Dr. Oetker loses pudding dispute against Aldi

In the pudding dispute between food giants Dr. Oetker and Aldi, the Bielefeld manufacturers of the original product Paula have announced that following their renewed defeat, they will bury the hatchet and will not lodge any appeals against the judgment rendered.

Since 2005, Dr. Oetker has been manufacturing the highly successful pudding 'Paula' in several flavours, in which a light and a dark pudding mass are distributed in the form of patches of a cow's hide within the cup. The discount retailer Aldi copied the pudding of its competitor and brought it onto the market in 2011 under the name 'Flecki'. Dr. Oetker challenged this in two separate interim proceedings seeking an injunction before the Regional Court (LG) Düsseldorf, as the group saw in this both an infringement of its registered design for Paula and an infringement of its patent registered for the manufacturing process.

Court's decision

The Regional Court (LG) Düsseldorf rejected both the application for an injunction with regard to the registered design (Aktenzeichen 14c O 302/11) and with regard to the patent (Az. 4b O 141/12). The Düsseldorf judges decided that Aldi with 'Flecki' infringes neither the design rights of Dr. Oetker nor the patent protected in favour of Dr. Oetker, and therefore the marketing and manufacture of the Aldi pudding does not need to cease.

On the one hand, there was no matching overall impression between the registered design 'Paula' and the design of 'Flecki'. Due to the density of pre-existing registered designs, the protection of the 'Paula' design was also relatively limited. Furthermore, it had to be possible for a competitor to design a pudding in the style of a cow's hide. The competitor had to take measures to avoid misleading the consumer as to origin. However, in the present case, Aldi had done this to a sufficient degree through the chosen differing design of the 'Flecki' pudding.

The patent dispute was also lost by the Bielefeld group, since in the opinion of the judges, the manufacturing process of the two products differed substantially. The reason for this was the differences in the technical procedures in the manufacturing process. According to the patent, to manufacture 'Paula', the outlet nozzles when filling the cups are interrupted at least twice and rotated by various degrees in the process. In contrast, to manufacture the 'Flecki' pudding, at most a dosing pause is provided and within this pause only one rotation is provided.

Conclusion

Despite comprehensive technical protection through a patent for the manufacturing process as well as protection of the design of the pudding through a registered design, Dr. Oetker was unable to prevent imitation of its successful pudding. The difference in the manufacture and design of the pudding was sufficient for the judges in each case to exclude an infringement and to deny Dr. Oetker the claim for an injunction.