McFucked!

The BBQ Pit
1

McDonald’s macho posturing aimed at making the Mac and Mc prefixes their exclusive property were brought to a timely halt in the High Court yesterday with this macrocosmic rulingagainst their macabre machinations.

Shakespeare will not now have to rewrite Macbeth, the 25th president of the United States need not be airbrushed from history and Steve McQueen movies can now be shown on television without fear of a legal action from Big Mac.

When you next visit a proper restaurant and tuck in to your mackerel with macaroni and vegetables macedoine, washed down with a bottle of Macon rouge and followed by macerated macaroons, just be thankful it’s still the real McCoy.

So, here’s to that most sensible fellow Mr. Justice Neuburger, surely the most appropriate authority to decide on matters such as this.

2

Man the McD’s exec who thought this one up needs a good teabagging.

yes I’m over 18

3

Did 60 Minutes have a show about the REAL McDonald, the owner of the name in Scotland, and how he was going to fuck with them by opening up a fast food chain?

Next, the Johnson & Johnson Company will trademark Johnson and you can no longer call your Johnson a Johnson. And Willys Jeeps will trademark Willie and all other forms of Willy and you won’t be able to call it Willie. Pretty soon you will be forced to just point at it, and that’s a recipe for getting slapped around. :eek:

4

You’re over 18, yet you don’t know that teabagging is pleasurable for both parties? Perhaps you meant to say wolfbagging.

5

I admit that upon reading the link, the facts of the case are not as outrageous as the OP suggests. Setting up a FAST FOOD CHAIN called “McChina” is very obviously a deliberate play on “McDonald’s” for the purpose of selling more fast food. It strikes me as being a lot different from just the innocuous use of “Mc” or “Mac” in another context.

6

I gotta say that I’ve been lurking for quite some time here, and that is the first thing that made me laugh out loud at work.

Well Done.

7

I’m over 18, yet I don’t know what the hell you guys are talking about.

Maybe Mr. Happy Drunken Prawn was trying to capitalize on the name, but so what? Mc is a very common prefix, and if you automatically think anything called McSomething is affiliated with McDonald’s, well, you’re a dumbass. If McDonald’s did manage to gain control of Mc, someone who wanted to open a McGregor’s restaurant or McFarlane’s cafe would be screwed.

8

There was a case like this in the UK, on the Isle Of Wight IIRC, Trusthouse Forté (now just called Forté) took legal action against a small family-run tea room called ‘The Forté Tea Room’, the case was dismissed and Mr and Mrs Forté were allowed to continue using their own name on their own shop.

9

And, how will the underlying principles of this case effect McDisney, & it’s endless legal battles?

10

Would you like fries with that?

11

I’m way over 18, and I don’t know what teabagging or wolfbagging are, either. Can someone explain? If it’s some real nasty thing, you can email me, rather then explain it here.
Back on track…isn’t there a hotel chain (in the US) called McSleep? I think they won a similar kind of lawsuit.

12

I wish I were as happy as a drunken prawn.

This case reminds me of those plucky veggie-munchers at McDharma’s: http://www.dharmaland.com/sentinel.html.

13

A similar thing happened here in Australia, where the wine company Moet et Chandon was claiming a tiny insignificant Australian couple were at risk of breaching copyright by using the name Channon Estate. (Channon being their family NAME for pete’s sake).

Insanity.

14

One of the doctors I train under calls the death of cardiac muscle due to bad eating habits “McFarctions.”

15

As sturmhauke points out so eloquently, if you concede China to McDonald’s where are you going to stop?

When Maurice and Richard McDonald set up their hamburger business, I don’t recall Macy’s complaining that people would think it was a department store. :slight_smile:

16

“Teabagging is pleasurable for both parties”.

  • Man, I’m not going to dinner at Billy Baroo’s house.
    From some adolescent website:

What is Teabagging?
Defined most simply, teabagging refers to the act of placing one’s testicles (actually, one’s scrotum, and even then, usually through clothing) on the head (preferably forehead, though this is negotiable) of another person. From this simple concept (popularized by the well-done, but rather disturbing film “Pecker”) comes the fun and easy Teabag Game!

What is the Teabag Game?
The Teabag Game is a fun and simple game that almost half the world’s population can play. All you need is a good pair of balls! (And some friends.) Essentially, the Teabag Game awards points to players for teabagging other players.

How to Play the Teabag Game
First, decide who’s playing. This may be difficult, as some people seem to take offense at genitalia on their heads. Threaten to teabag them if they won’t play. If they retaliate by saying that that being teabagged once would be better than being teabagged repeatedly during the game, play as if they were participating.

Next, decide point values for different types of teabags. For example, a stealth teabag - where the teabagee doesn’t know what’s happening until the moment of contact - give three points; give one point for a teabag that is unsuccessfully dodged. Deduct points for teabags that require the teabagger to grab the teabagee’s head; give bonus points for creative or “risky” teabags (eg., in the front row while a professor is lecturing).

Finally, decide when the game will end. This could be when someone has amassed a certain number of points (eg., 50), or after a predetermined amount of time (eg., 2 weeks). Of course, you could have a teabag game that goes on forever, with the current high-scorer the reigning “Teabag King.”

17

Actually, McSleep (a unit of Quality Inns) got hosed on that one. At trial, their witnesses admitted that Quality Inns was trying to capitalize on the idea of McSleep being “cheap and good” or something like that. IIRC, they won at trial but were reversed on appeal.

It’s been years since I read the case in Trademarks class, so I’ll have to check for a cite.

Zap!

18

It’s maybe relevant to cite the case of Bully Hill Wineries here. Bully Hill is a wonderful winery on the Finger Lakes in Hammondsport in Upstate New York, founded by one of the illustrious Taylor family, winemakers for a long time. The Taylor family sold their winery and the name to the Coca Cola corporation.(ominous music here). When Walter Taylor started Bully Hill wines, he naturally put his name (in small type) in the corner of the labels that he himself drew and painted.

Coca Cola took him to court. He was using the name “Taylor” on the bottle, and his family had sold them the name. Coca Cola maintained that this extended to ALL uses of the Taylor name on the bottles – not merely calling your wine “Taylor”. Walter S. Taylor thought this was ridiculous, but Coca Cola apparently prevailed.

Walter S. took to putting his name as “Walter S. ?”, and drawing his picture on the labels with one eye in the middle of his forehead, apparently to suggest that Coke wouldn’t let him use his picture, either.

Corporations have no sense of humor. They took him back to court, claiming he was making a mockery of the rulibng. He was, of course, and rightly so, in my mind. Nevertheless, Coke is a big corporation with Deep Pockets, so Taylor had to give. He took to labeling his wines as by “Walter S. (black bar)”. He didn’t put pictures of himself as a Cyclops, but he did take to putting a picture of a Goat on two of his wines. “They may have gotten my name,” read the label, “But they didn’t get my goat.” The goat is sticking out its tongue. Coke hasn’t taken them back to court, as far as I know.

The best part is that Walter S. managed to sneak his name back on the label, all the same. And legally, too. He had the street the winery was on re-named “Greyton H. Taylor Boulevard” in honor of his father (grandfather?), and there’s no reason he can;'t put his address on the bottle.

I hear that Walter S. Passed away recently. Too bad. But the wine is very good, all native American grapes, and it’s not too sweet or too fruit like so many Labrusca wines. And the goat’s still on the labels – I just explained it to my daughter last night.