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• In November 2008 Dunedin’s Green Man Brewery began making a radler-style beer, but DB’s lawyers soon served papers ordering the brewery to cease selling it. Unable to afford a protracted legal battle with DB, the microbrewery capitulated and relabelled its beer Green Man Cyclist.
• In response to the frustrations expressed by the Society of Beer Advocates (SOBA) Inc about DB Breweries’ trade marking and preventing others from using the generic term “radler” in relation to their beer, James & Wells Intellectual Property offered SOBA Inc the services of its specialist intellectual property litigation group on a pro-bono basis to invalidate DB Breweries’ trade mark registration for RADLER.
• In May 2009, James & Wells, acting on behalf of SOBA, issued an Application for Declaration of Invalidity for New Zealand Trade Mark Registration No. 700726 RADLER in the name of DB Breweries Limited. The case continues.

SOBA argues:

1. That ‘radler’ - like Pilsener, porter, brown ale, bock etc. - is a generic name for a recognised style of beer and should therefore not be permitted to be a term owned by one brewery. A simple search of the internet will give an indication of the number of breweries producing radlers.
2. That DB was most certainly well aware that ‘radler’ is a recognised style of beer. Indeed Monteith’s own website acknowledges radler’s stylistic heritage, stating, “The style originates from Bavaria and was first created in the early 1920's…”