manuka honey

It would seem that the campaign by the New Zealand Manuka Honey Appellation Society to trademark Manuka Honey as a specifically New Zealand name not to be used by others (particularly Australians) is not going too well.  For the story so far check my blog on manuka or tea-tree.

 The latest setback for the New Zealanders in December last year was that Britain’s Intellectual Property Office refused their request on the basis that, while manuka is a word of Maori origin, it has entered the English language and applies  to the honey from the bees which forage on the flowers of the leptospermum tree wherever it grows.  This tree is native to New Zealand and Australia.  

 The IPO cites evidence that, while the bulk of the manuka honey sold in the UK does come from New Zealand, it doesn’t have to come from that country. It could come from other countries, in particular, Australia.

 The Oxford English Dictionary is no doubt one of the dictionaries to which they referred and that has two definitions for manuka.  One is for either of two small trees, one being Leptospermum scoparium or white manuka, found in Australia as well as New Zealand, and the other, Kunzea ericoides, endemic to New Zealand.  The second definition is for the honey described as a dark honey from the nectar mostly of the flowers of the white manuka, ‘reputed to have special medicinal or health-promoting qualities’.   There is no geographical restriction.

 Apparently the U.S. and Australia have rejected the claim as well.  I must say the New Zealanders have more hide than Jessie in making this claim to the Australians.

 So it looks as if manuka honey will continue to be a generic term.

Just as an aside and to answer a subscriber’s question, I would like to mention the rival pronunciations of manuka. The Maori language stresses the first syllable so the pronunciation there is mah-nu-kuh and this pronunciation is gaining currency in Australian English. The older pronunciation was produced by Australians who applied their English intuitions and came up with man-noo-ka. Of course once a pronunciation is linked to a place name it tends to linger on whatever happens to the pronunciation of the word in general use. But Mah-nook-a Oval does seem to be switching to Mah-nuh-kuh Oval. The honey seems to be commonly mah-noo-ka but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there were pockets of the man-noo-ka pronunciation still going strong.

Sadly the Australians’ claim that ugg boot was generic was again rejected by the U.S.   In that case they would have to strip an American company of the rights for which they paid an Australian company.  That’s not going to happen. It should never have been allowed to happen but no American court is going to penalise an American company to save an Australian one.