Honey producers in New Zealand have lost the fight with Australian producers to trademark the term mānuka. The Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand (IPONZ) has ruled the term manuka honey cannot be registered as a certification trademark in New Zealand as the Maori term mānuka was descriptive. The case was primarily put forward by New Zealand’s Mānuka Honey Appellation Society (MHAS), which has been attempting to trademark honey from New Zealand since 2015.