Glad that McCurry won the case against McDonalds. How can the fast food chain stop any non-burger related people (or beings, rather) or brand usethe prefix"Mc"?!
The article from The Guardian:
McDonald's loses McCurry legal battle
Eight years on from the first legal challenge, the Malaysian Federal Court has ruled that the McCurry restaurant can keep using its name
McCurry owners A M S P Suppiah and his wife Kanageswary in front of their restaurant following another legal victory against US hamburger giant McDonald's in Kuala Lumpur.
So it seems that McDonald's, the Great Satan of the food world, has lost another legal battle to protect its brand. After a protracted court case, restaurateurs Mr and Mrs Suppiah will be allowed to keep using the name of their Kuala Lumpur restaurant McCurry.
The global meat 'n' bun wranglers first sued in 2001 and the Malaysian high court eventually ruled in their favour in 2006. On a subsequent appeal, Mr Suppiah obtained a reversal of the decision and it's only now that McDonald's challenge to that ruling has been tossed out. Finally McCurry can let the paint dry on the sign … at least for now.It's no surprise to see a multinational 'protecting' their brand in this way and the tactics of stalling and attrition are pretty much what you'd expect from an organisation of that size attempting to defend a case of such obvious daftness. How can anyone claim ownership over a Gaelic ancestral prefix, millenia old?
McDonald's may well have had some kind of case if the Suppiahs were slinging burgers. There could have been a certain 'passing off'. Some potential customers, albeit the terminally stupid ones, might have felt that this poor imitation was really the genuine article. But in this case they were serving Malaysian curry, a fact indicated with some clarity in the name they selected.
Oddly enough, I don't find myself righteously incensed with McDonald's stupidity, corporate hubris or even general disrespect for Gaelic. It's apparent from the news reports that, now Mr Suppiah's won his case, he proposes to roll out his operation all over the country. Though he obviously didn't, in any way, have the multinational in mind when he named his fast food outlet (apparently McCurry is short for "Malaysian Chicken Curry) he now wants to emulate their fungal spread. What irritates me is that probably one of the top half dozen most powerful and recognisable global brands doesn't have the self confidence to take a joke.
McDonald's of course, do have one point in their favour. If they let operations like Mr Suppiah's proliferate with no quality control, there would be a danger that the 'Mc' suffix would become associated in people's heads with poor quality fast food, made with dreadful ingredients and served by underpaid drones. And we can't have that, can we?
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