The Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand has upheld DB Breweries' move to trade mark the word Radler, a style of beer.
DB registered the word in 2003, with the Society of Beer Advocates (Soba) applying to have it revoked in 2009.
Soba had argued that Radler was a generic term for a style of beer, DB said. The company had rejected that argument.
DB registered Radler to protect the significant investment it had made in creating and marketing the brand in this country, DB general manager marketing Clare Morgan said today.
"We didn't do it to prevent competition or restrict consumers' access to different types of beer products," she said.
"Our trade mark has never stopped shandy or lemon or lime flavoured beverages being made by local brewers under their own brand name. In fact, this is what one brewery is already doing."
While costs had been awarded to DB, the company would not be seeking them from Soba.
Soba said it was bitterly disappointed by the decision, which set a precedent that other manufacturers would follow.
"Imagine a firm registering the term muesli when used to describe cereal or jalapeno when used to describe hot sauce", Soba secretary Greig McGill said.
"If that happens, the market will end up tied up in legal knots and businesses will cease to have any confidence in the legal registration process, a process which is vital for ensuring the competitive nature of our country.
"Our stated position has always been that we do not think that any brewery should own the name of a beer style."
Radler was a term commonly used in Europe and elsewhere to describe a kind of lemonade shandy with an alcohol by volume of around 1-2 percent.
DB's Monteith's Radler had an alcohol by volume of 5 percent, Soba said.
The fact that Radler was a registered trademark became apparent in 2008 when Green Man Brewery produced a Radler to style and was notified it had unwittingly infringed DB's trademark and was required to cease producing the beer, or rename it.
Green Man Brewery now produced a Radler-style beer called Cyclist.
