Zespri’s case against illegal gold kiwifruit planting goes to new court

New Zealand SunGold growers pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for a licence to grow the variety.

Zespri’s legal action in China over rogue planting there of New Zealand’s bestselling gold kiwifruit is being shifted to a new court.

The global kiwifruit marketer said its civil case to address pirated plantings of the variety known as Gold3 was continuing and would be transferred to the Wuhan Intermediate People’s Court.

This court was an experienced intellectual property court which had heard numerous cases relating to plant variety right infringement, Zespri said in its latest industry newsletter.

Last year, Zespri estimated there were close to 8000 hectares of Gold3 SunGold fruit growing illegally in China, but said expansion seemed to have slowed.

The area compares closely with New Zealand plantings of SunGold vines.

China is an important market for Zespri – 20% of New Zealand kiwifruit is sold there. China and Japan are Zespri’s biggest export markets.

Zespri owns the rights to SunGold, or G3, and growers in New Zealand pay hundreds of thousands of dollars per hectare each year for a licence to grow it.

A grower took clippings to China in 2016.

Zespri in July last year filed a civil case in the Intellectual Property Court in Nanjing, China, against two defendants over the unauthorised production, sale and marketing of its gold kiwifruit.

A grower-owned company entitled by regulation to export all New Zealand kiwifruit, except to Australia, Zespri has ongoing legal activity to protect its brand in China.

In August it reported recently completed successful prosecutions against three people in China for online sales of locally grown fruit with counterfeit Zespri labels to the value of more than NZ$700,000.

Zespri said it anticipated an initial judgment from the new court within 12 months.

It said the case was a significant step in its ongoing efforts to protect the investment made by New Zealand producers in licensed kiwifruit varieties, as well as the interests of our customers and consumers.

Andrea Fox joined the Herald as a senior business journalist in 2018 and specialises in writing about the $26 billion dairy industry, agribusiness, exporting and the logistics sector and supply chains.