New Zealand urgently needs an Australian type mechanism for government intervention when patently unjust and misguided decisions are handed down by the Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand -- as in its recent decision to uphold DB Breweries’ trademark of the term ‘Radler’.

Intellectual property expert, Theodore Doucas of Zone IP, an intellectual property management consultancy in Wellington, says the IPONZ decision in favour of DB Breweries – on the grounds ‘Radler’ was not known as a descriptive term in New Zealand in 2004 -- is out of touch with reality.

Mr Doucas was commenting on IPONZ’s most recent decision not to revoke or cancel DB Breweries trademark rights over the name, even though Radler is the generic term for a style of low alcohol beer, like Lager and Pilsner.

The appeal was brought in 2009 by the Society of Beer Advocates (Soba), after beer giant DB Breweries acted against Green Man Organic Brewery, for breaching its trademark in the use of the name 'Radler'. DB Breweries trademarked the name in 2004 after the launch of its Monteith's Radler.

“Radler is a style of beer and a common term all over the world. People may as well now try to trademark terms like ‘Ute’ and ‘Shandy’, because that’s what IPONZ is in effect allowing.

“The real tragedy is that unless you have massively deep pockets in New Zealand, there is no way to challenge this type of injustice. In Australia there is provision for the relevant Government minister to intervene – we should have the same here in New Zealand,” Mr Doucas said.

He said the real test of distinctiveness for a trademark is whether or not it is likely to become common.

“Clearly IPONZ did not apply the test properly, they did not do their research properly and they have passed up their opportunity to correct an earlier mistake. It is a cop out and disgraceful decision.

“You cannot give somebody a monopoly like this and then think it’s good for business. This is bad for New Zealand, bad for business and bad for the consumer because it stifles competition.”

Mr Doucas called on DB Breweries to reconsider its position because the ‘Radler’ decision was fast turning into a public relations disaster for the company.

“They achieve nothing from this apart from the monopoly of a common term. I think their lawyers are selling them into a public relations nightmare of negativity and bad press.

“The job of IPONZ is to protect business, not create monopolies and right now IPONZ is promulgating monopolies that should not exist,” he said.