New Zealand honey producers have lost their latest battle to trademark manuka honey, the latest blow in a yearslong fight to stop Australian beekeepers using the lucrative name.
The Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand yesterday ruled that New Zealand manuka beekeepers’ attempt for a trademark did not meet necessary requirements, and the term manuka was descriptive.
Manuka refers to a white flowered tree that grows in both New Zealand and Australia, although it is more widely known as “tea tree” in Australia. The bees that browse its tiny pale blooms produce a kind of honey known for antibacterial and supposed health properties — and which fetches a significant price markup on the international market as a result.
At the highest concentrations, some New Zealand batches have fetched up to NZ$2,000 to NZ$5,000 (US$1,258 to US$3,144) for a 250g jar at luxury stores overseas. The lucrative nature of the product has been responsible for outbreaks of crime in New Zealand, with fierce competition over access to manuka forests spurring mass poisonings of bees, thefts, vandalism and beatings.
However, for more than a decade, the two countries have been at loggerheads over the use of the manuka name — a Maori word, which New Zealand says is an indigenous treasure, uniquely associated with its own honey production. ]
Manuka Charitable Trust chair Pita Tipene said the decision was “disappointing in so many ways.”
He said the trust would pause to regroup, before continuing its battle.
“If anything, it has made us more determined to protect what is ours on behalf of all New Zealanders and consumers who value authenticity,” he said.
“Our role as kaitiaki [guardians] to protect the mana [dignity] and value of our taonga [treasured] species, including manuka on behalf of all New Zealanders is not contestable,” he said.
Australian industry players welcomed the decision as a “common sense outcome” and issued a press release saying they had plans to grow international sales in response to rising demand.
Australian Manuka Honey Association chairman Ben McKee said he was “delighted” by the ruling.
“Our product has a long history of being recognized as manuka honey; it is produced like the NZ product is, and it also offers the sought-after antimicrobial properties that consumers around the world value so highly,” he said.
New Zealand producers first tried to trademark the term in 2015.
The Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand called the fight “a trans-Tasman tussle of extraordinary proportions” and said in its ruling that it was “one of the most complex and long-running proceedings to have come before the Intellectual Property Office.”
The latest decision follows a similar 2021 ruling from the UK to not grant trademark status.
‘THEY KILLED HOPE’: Four presidential candidates were killed in the 1980s and 1990s, and Miguel Uribe’s mother died during a police raid to free her from Pablo Escobar Colombian presidential candidate Miguel Uribe has died two months after being shot at a campaign rally, his family said on Monday, as the attack rekindled fears of a return to the nation’s violent past. The 39-year-old conservative senator, a grandson of former Colombian president Julio Cesar Turbay (1978-1982), was shot in the head and leg on June 7 at a rally in the capital, Bogota, by a suspected 15-year-old hitman. Despite signs of progress in the past few weeks, his doctors on Saturday announced he had a new brain hemorrhage. “To break up a family is the most horrific act of violence that
HISTORIC: After the arrest of Kim Keon-hee on financial and political funding charges, the country has for the first time a former president and former first lady behind bars South Korean prosecutors yesterday raided the headquarters of the former party of jailed former South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol to gather evidence in an election meddling case against his wife, a day after she was arrested on corruption and other charges. Former first lady Kim Keon-hee was arrested late on Tuesday on a range of charges including stock manipulation and corruption, prosecutors said. Her arrest came hours after the Seoul Central District Court reviewed prosecutors’ request for an arrest warrant against the 52-year-old. The court granted the warrant, citing the risk of tampering with evidence, after prosecutors submitted an 848-page opinion laying out
North Korean troops have started removing propaganda loudspeakers used to blare unsettling noises along the border, South Korea’s military said on Saturday, days after Seoul’s new administration dismantled ones on its side of the frontier. The two countries had already halted propaganda broadcasts along the demilitarized zone, Seoul’s military said in June after the election of South Korean President Lee Jae-myung, who is seeking to ease tensions with Pyongyang. The South Korean Ministry of National Defense on Monday last week said it had begun removing loudspeakers from its side of the border as “a practical measure aimed at helping ease
DEADLY TASTE TEST: Erin Patterson tried to kill her estranged husband three times, police said in one of the major claims not heard during her initial trial Australia’s recently convicted mushroom murderer also tried to poison her husband with bolognese pasta and chicken korma curry, according to testimony aired yesterday after a suppression order lapsed. Home cook Erin Patterson was found guilty last month of murdering her husband’s parents and elderly aunt in 2023, lacing their beef Wellington lunch with lethal death cap mushrooms. A series of potentially damning allegations about Patterson’s behavior in the lead-up to the meal were withheld from the jury to give the mother-of-two a fair trial. Supreme Court Justice Christopher Beale yesterday rejected an application to keep these allegations secret. Patterson tried to kill her
RSS