Page 134 - CL How to Read a Case Study

From the website printouts "it could not be concluded

whether, or how, a purchase could be made or an order could
be placed", the EUIPO said.

"Even if the websites provided such an option, there is no

information of a single order being placed." (Ref 3)

January 2019 the Irish fast food chain won the trademark

case when An EU court (European Union Intellectual

Property Office), revoked all rights for the words "Big Mac"

as they relate to goods or restaurants across the EU.

For McDonagh “the Big Mac is a burger. It's not a restaurant

chain. And accordingly, they felt that even though it had been in

existence since 1996, they felt it wasn't a genuine objection."

(Ref 1)

McDonagh said that the ruling was a positive step towards
curtailing McDonald's tactic of registering trademarks across

the world in advance, which restricted smaller businesses

like Supermac's from growing their brand. He quoted

examples of registration by McDonalds such as "McCountry,
McFamily, McInternet, including the registration of the

brand SnackBox, which was one of Supermac’s most

popular products, even though the product was not actually

offered by McDonalds. The EU was basically saying you
either use it or lose it.

This was not the first time a European court had ruled on
McDonald’s rights to use prefixes: In 2016, the company

won a case against a Singaporean company that had

registered MacCoffee as a European Union trademark. (Ref 2)