Their advertisements show smiling children enjoying tasty treats and living the idyllic life of little ones high on sugar. Theirs is a world of joy and happiness.

However, things have been far from sweet in the German confectionary market for the companies that make the products which keep the kids smiling.

Behind the sugary facade, German firm Haribo and Italian rival Ferrero have been fighting it out in a copyright battle over the use of the German word for child, Kinder.

Ferrero, the manufacturer of chocolate products like the Kinder Surprise Egg and Kinder chocolate bars, has been trying since 2003 to get Haribo to drop Kinder from the name of its products, claiming that its use infringes copyright.

Haribo, the makers of sweets like the world famous Goldbären gummy bears, have a range called Kinder Kram which Ferrero took specific umbrage to.

Now, however, the Sweet War seems to be over after Germany's Federal Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that Haribo had broken no copyright laws and could continue to use the word Kinder in its product range.

The court, Germany's highest, ruled that the word Kinder is not a brand name but the title for the confectionary companies' target group. As most confectionary companies market their wares mostly for the children's sector, Ferrero had no right to claim the word in Germany as a brand name, the court said.

It may have been a sweet result for Haribo but things got even worse for Ferrero when a second case brought against another German firm, Zott, for its dessert Kinder Zeit (Child Time), was also thrown out of court, bringing the whole sorry episode to a bitter end.