In the past year, trademarks have had a higher profile in New Zealand’s commercial press than they might usually. 

The interest in trademarks came about in March 2024. Paddy Gower, a New Zealand-based journalist who has worked his way up from covering the police beat for The New Zealand Herald to moving into television journalism, where he worked at 3 News as a political reporter and then political editor and national correspondent. 

Eventually, when 3 News, which later became Newshub, was shuttered, Gower joined Stuff, where he quickly filed a trademark application to protect his brand and that of his new news entity, “This Is The Fucking News.” The Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand (IPONZ) promptly shot the application down, stating that it would “likely offend a significant section of the community,” contravening a clause of the Trade Marks Act 2002. 

Gower resubmitted his application with “This Is The F#$%ing News,” which IPONZ accepted and registered. 

“I was surprised that ‘This Is The Fucking News’ was rejected as a trademark, but ‘This Is The F#$%ing News’ was okay,” Gower wrote on LinkedIn in April 2025. “I applied to the Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand (IPONZ), and it ruled that it was ‘likely to offend a significant section of the community.’ I’m not sure it does, given how much happiness people have when they say ‘This Is The Fucking News’ to me! But I guess rule are rules!” 

(A 2022 survey from New Zealand’s Broadcasting Standards Authority revealed that the unacceptability of “the f-word” and many of its variations had declined significantly since the previous survey in 2018. The f-word had declined from the 13th most unacceptable word in broadcasting in 2018 to 26th most unacceptable in 2022. The top seven most unacceptable words across all broadcasting contexts were primarily racial and cultural insults, which we won’t mention here.) 

IPONZ guidance says that “distinction should be drawn between marks that are offensive and marks that would be considered by some to be in poor taste.” It defines offensive trademarks as those that would create “justifiable censure or outrage.” 

IPONZ does not seem to have a wholescale ban on swear words, as in 2020, it allowed SYSCA Media Limited to register “Shit You Should Care About” as a trademark in Class 41, which includes entertainment services. 

New Zealand continues to maintain robust IP laws, both domestically and with neighbouring Australia. It is with this ongoing interest in IP laws we turned to IP professionals in the region in order to understand better what clients need today. Asia IP asked a large number of professionals – mostly in-house counsel and corporate legal managers – what they were looking for from their legal service providers. From their answers, we have compiled our list of New Zealand’s IP Experts, those lawyers who understand what their clients need and are able to provide them with the best practical advice.  

To anyone familiar with the intellectual property market in New Zealand, it is no surprise that AJ Park and James & Wells lead the list of law firms represented on the list; each of powerhouse law firms placed seven lawyers on our list (Anton Blijlevens, Penelope Catley, Kate Giddens, Amanda Griffiths, Thomas Huthwaite, Tim Jackson and Wes Jones for AJ Park, and Ian Finch, Gus Hazel, Jonathan Lucas, Carrick Robinson, Jason Wach, Tim Walden and Ceri Wells for James & Wells). Other firms were also well represented: Catalyst Intellectual Property (Emily Ellis, Greg Lynch and John Mansell), Chapman Tripp (Tom Cleary, Kelly McFadzien and Matt Sumpter) and Hudson Gavin Martin (Caitlin Hadlee, Tim Mahood and Jason Rudkins-Binks) each had three lawyers included on our list, while Blue Penguin IP (Jon Ashen and Jo Shaw), Duncan Cotterill (Jonathan Aumonier-Ward and Michael Moyes) Henry Hughes IP (David Moore and David Nowak), Ironside McDonald Intellectual Property (Sue Irwin Ironside and Rachel McDonald) and Simpson Grierson (Sarah Chapman and Richard Watts) each placed two lawyers on our list.  

Our survey includes only those lawyers working at law firms in New Zealand. 

Most of the lawyers named to our list have multiple practice specialties. Many of them are litigators, while others concentrate on prosecution work or provide strategic advice.  

All of them have something in common: they are Asia IP’s IP Experts for New Zealand. 

– GREGORY GLASS 

New Zealand’s IP Experts is based solely on independent editorial research conducted by Asia IP. As part of this project, we turned to thousands of in-house counsel in New Zealand, Australia, Asia and around the world, and asked them to nominate private-practice lawyers, including foreign legal consultants, advisers and counsel.  

The final list reflects the nominations received combined with the input of the editorial team at Asia IP, which has more than 50 years of collective experience in researching and understanding the legal market in New Zealand. 

All private practice intellectual property lawyers working at law firms in New Zealand were eligible for inclusion in the nomination process; there were no fees or any other requirements for inclusion. 

The names of our 50 IP Experts are published here. Each IP Expert was given the opportunity to include their biography and contact details in print and on our website, for which a fee was charged.