The Maritime and Commercial High Court ruled on Friday that the Danish Dictionary does not have to change its definition of “ostepop”. Orkla Snacks Danmark, the company behind the chip brand Kims, lost the case.
DR reports that Orkla Snacks Danmark had sued Det Danske Sprog- og Litteraturselskab, the society that publishes Den Danske Ordbog. The snack producer argued that the dictionary entry should state that the puffs are sold under the Kims trademark as “Ostepops”. The court in Copenhagen rejected that demand on Friday, August 14, 2026.
According to DR, the definition will therefore stay as it is. The entry describes an ostepop as a crisp, yellow or orange, curved snack made from corn flour with the taste of cheddar cheese. The wording has now been tested in court and left unchanged.
What the court said
In a notice published on its own website, Sø- og Handelsretten stated that the publisher could not be ordered to make the requested change. The court noted that the dictionary entry already says that “ostepop” is registered as a trademark in the plural form “Ostepops”. That note appears under the definition itself, as reported by DR.
On that basis, the court found that the entry meets the requirement in section 7 of the Danish Trademark Act. The provision states that it must be indicated when a word is a registered trademark. The court concluded that the existing note was sufficient to satisfy the law.
Orkla Snacks Danmark must pay 65,000 kroner in legal costs, according to DR’s report on the ruling. The company has four weeks to appeal the judgment. DR does not report whether Orkla Snacks Danmark intends to do so.
Den Danske Ordbog is the reference work for contemporary written and spoken Danish, and it is compiled and published by Det Danske Sprog- og Litteraturselskab. The society was acquitted in the lawsuit brought by the company behind Kims, per DR. The case concerned how a single food term is described, not the sale of the product.
The dispute had been reported earlier by DR, which covered the accusation that the dictionary gave a deficient description of ostepops. That earlier coverage set out the company’s claim that the trademark was not properly reflected in the entry. Friday’s ruling settles that claim at first instance.
The word ostepop is widely used in Denmark as a general term for cheese-flavored corn puffs. The court’s decision means shoppers and dictionary users will continue to find the same definition when they look up the snack. The ruling is dated August 14, 2026, the same day the court published its notice.
