Australian honey producers scored a win in their legal tussle with New Zealand over the use of the term “manuka honey” in the UK and Europe — though the Kiwis say it may be a short-lived victory.
The two neighboring nations have been locked in legal proceedings for the past five years after a group of New Zealand honey producers sought to prevent their Australian counterparts from using the description in various countries.
In the latest development, New Zealand’s Manuka Honey Appellation Society (MHAS) discontinued its High Court appeal in the UK to trademark the words “manuka honey” just days before Christmas, weeks after withdrawing its application for a certification mark in the EU.
Photo: AFP
“The MHAS backdown means the UK Intellectual Property Office ruling of December 2021 in Australian beekeepers’ favor stands, and there is no restraint or trademark on Manuka naming rights,” Australian Manuka Honey Association (AMHA) chairperson Paul Callander said.
However, John Rawcliffe, chief executive officer of New Zealand’s Unique Manuka Factor Honey Association and a member of MHAS, said the legal withdrawal was strategic and the group plans to refile the appeal.
At stake is access to the international manuka honey market, which is forecast to be worth around A$1.27 billion (US$893 million) in annual trade by 2027, with products containing the pricey sweetener selling between A$300 to A$500 per kilo, according to the AMHA.
Manuka honey, sought after for its antibacterial properties and purported health benefits, is made by bees that pollinate the Leptospermum scoparium, or manuka tree, which grows throughout New Zealand and in some parts of Australia.
However, MHAS claims the word “manuka” has a Maori origin, and therefore is a distinctive product of New Zealand, with Rawcliffe saying differences in climate, surrounding plants and soil meant only the Kiwis could produce the true honey.
“Manuka is an Australian native plant and the term Manuka honey has long been used in Australia to describe this unique honey,” Callander said. “Australian growers have every right to use the word to describe their produce, as upheld by the UK Courts.”
MHAS has also attempted to trademark the term in New Zealand, the US and China. Actions in China and the US were thrown out, and are pending in New Zealand.
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to