{"id":5296,"date":"2023-06-06T05:04:06","date_gmt":"2023-06-05T17:04:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=5296"},"modified":"2023-06-06T05:04:06","modified_gmt":"2023-06-05T17:04:06","slug":"how-nzs-own-law-helped-australia-win-the-manuka-honey-trademark-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=5296","title":{"rendered":"How NZ&#8217;s own law helped Australia win the Manuka Honey trademark war"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"photo-captioned photo-captioned-full photo-cntr eight_col \">\n<p class=\"photo-captioned__information\"><span class=\"caption\">Although Australian Leptospermum scoparium is the same species as m\u0101nuka in Aotearoa, there are differences between the plants, the honey produced from them and their cultural significance. (file image)\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"credit\">Photo:\u00a0Photo \/ 123RF<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><i>Analysis<\/i>\u00a0&#8211; The recent decision in &#8220;one of the most complex and long running&#8221; trademark cases in New Zealand was\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/programmes\/the-detail\/story\/2018891683\/manuka-the-buzz-that-a-word-makes\">a loss for the country&#8217;s m\u0101nuka honey producers<\/a>. But it also served to highlight just how ill-equipped our laws are for protecting M\u0101ori taonga (treasures) and m\u0101tauranga M\u0101ori (traditional knowledge).<\/p>\n<p>The case, decided by the Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand (IPONZ), centred on whether the term &#8220;Manuka Honey&#8221; could be registered by the M\u0101nuka Honey Appellation Society as a certification trademark in Aotearoa New Zealand. The society represents a group of New Zealand producers.<\/p>\n<p>Registration would have allowed the society to exclusively use the Manuka Honey name (without the tohut\u014d or macron over the &#8220;a&#8221;) when marketing honey made from the nectar of the m\u0101nuka (Leptospermum scoparium) plant. Honey producers in\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/news\/country\/490383\/new-zealand-manuka-honey-producers-lose-trademark-bid\">Australia opposed any such move<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Certification marks are a type of trademark where the owner independently certifies that their goods possess certain defined characteristics. The marks enable owners to commercialise products that are sourced from specific geographical areas or produced using particular methods.<\/p>\n<p>If it had been successful, the society would have only allowed New Zealand-based producers to use the trademark on their products.<\/p>\n<p>SOURCE RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Although Australian Leptospermum scoparium is the same species as m\u0101nuka in Aotearoa, there are differences between the plants, the honey produced from them and their cultural significance. (file image)\u00a0Photo:\u00a0Photo \/ 123RF Analysis\u00a0&#8211; The recent decision in &#8220;one of the most complex and long running&#8221; trademark cases in New Zealand was\u00a0a loss for the country&#8217;s m\u0101nuka [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":5297,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5296"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5296\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5298,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5296\/revisions\/5298"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}