APPLE and Pear Australia is branching out into the intellectual property market, following its success in developing the Pink Lady apple brand. 

APAL has created an new intellectual property division, called Coregeo.

APAL chairman Darral Ashton said Coregeo would manage the Pink Lady brand and provide consultancy services to help horticulturalists gain similar exposure from their plant breeding investments.

"Coregeo represents a great opportunity for our industry to capitalise on the expertise we have developed through Pink Lady intellectual property management,'' Mr Ashton said.

Mr Ashton announced the new venture at the NAB Agribusiness Awards for Excellence last night, where APAL picked up the Agribusiness Value Adding Award for its international development of the Pink Lady brand.