Malaysian court rules McDonald's does not own the prefix 'Mc'
Filed under: Extracurriculars, Food
Score one for the scrappy little up-start in the battle against the big, bad corporate behemoth.Eight years ago, McDonalds sued McCurry, a Malaysian eatery, accusing the company of trademark infringement for using the prefix "Mc" in its name. Owner A.M.S.P Suppiah said the name stood for Malaysian Chicken Curry.
Rounds of appeals turned up no evidence that McCurry was passing itself off as McDonald's which, of course, it wasn't because McDonald's is not a curry place. The case has finally come to a conclusion and McCurry will keep its name and McDonald's will pay a couple thousand bucks in costs.
Why McDonald's would get involved in something so stupid is completely beyond me. Did it honestly think that McCurry posed anything resembling a threat to consumer confusion? And even if it did, was a one location eatery substantial enough to merit eight years of legal costs?
And that's to say nothing of the ill will generated by suing a mom and pop curry restaurant which a lot of people, myself included, probably find immoral and distasteful.
Zac McBissonnette is a writer with McWalletPop.com.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
10-08-2009 @ 5:13AM
Richard Baron said...
The recent McDonald's v. McCurry ruling is not surprising. Just by the three main DuPont factors alone, appearance, sound and meaning, these two marks are arguably not confusingly similar. Add to that the difference in menus, and the difference in trade dress, and you have a pretty strong case for McCurry, which the panel seemingly accepted. The letters "Mc" cannot be totally, exclusively owned by one entity worldwide. And it's not as if people are going to mix up McCurry with McDonalds. Now, if McCurry used the golden arches, had a clown and similar characters associated with the restaurant, that would be problematic. Those elements were not present in this case. On our site, http://www.trademarksprotected.com, we help with these trademark issues and any trademark questions.
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