Alpha Posted September 21, 2004 Share Posted September 21, 2004 SINGAPORE (Reuters) - U.S. fast-food giant McDonald's Corp. lost a legal battle in Singapore Monday to stop a food company from distributing products named "MacNoodles," "MacTea" and "MacChocolate." The world's largest fast-food company said Singapore-based Future Enterprises Pte Ltd. had copied McDonald's trademarks when registering its products in 1995. The High Court dismissed the case in April but McDonald's appealed. "McDonald's has spent millions to create goodwill and instant public recognition for its 'Mc' series of marks," said Davinder Singh, a high-profile Singapore lawyer who represented McDonald's, before the judge ruled against the fast-food chain. The ruling ends a courtroom tussle over intellectual property rights and anti-monopoly laws, and comes as Singapore positions itself as a bastion of intellectual property protection in Asia in an aggressive bid to attract foreign investors. Under a U.S.-Singapore Free Trade Agreement that took effect in January, the wealthy city-state's intellectual property laws were harmonized with those of the United States. Lawyers for Future Enterprises had argued that "MacNoodles," "MacTea" and "MacChocolate" bore no similarity to those of McDonald's. The Singapore products are packaged with an eagle logo and distributed in supermarkets and convenience stores. "There can be no likelihood of confusion or deception. The marks are different in appearance, sound and concept," said the company's lawyer, Tan Tee Jim. McDonald's has restaurants in 119 countries and serves nearly 50 million customers a day in more than 30,000 restaurants. In Singapore, it has 129 restaurants.Mac and Mc, someone has to be blind to get it mixed up. This reminds me of the movie, "Coming to America", with McDowell's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gryph Posted September 21, 2004 Share Posted September 21, 2004 Coming to America was awesome. But I can see why McDonald's sued...that Mac company is definitely trying to ride the Mc wave. If you go to foreign countries they pronounce Mc as Mac. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alpha Posted September 21, 2004 Author Share Posted September 21, 2004 Coming to America was awesome. But I can see why McDonald's sued...that Mac company is definitely trying to ride the Mc wave. If you go to foreign countries they pronounce Mc as Mac.Never thought of that, good point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Weirdy Posted September 21, 2004 Share Posted September 21, 2004 reminds me with Microsoft sued that Mike Row dude for having a domain called Mikerowsoft Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ugenn Posted September 21, 2004 Share Posted September 21, 2004 Was GC ever sued by 1sex.com? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alpha Posted September 21, 2004 Author Share Posted September 21, 2004 Was GC ever sued by 1sex.com?Uhmm... ... Nope. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
random guy Posted September 21, 2004 Share Posted September 21, 2004 Aha! Some justice for a change! This finally proves that just because you are a big company doesn't mean you will ultimately win a lawsuit. Which is good because lawsuits are getting out of hand. Fox news, for instance, has sued Al Franken (and lost) and in fact even threatened to sue the Simpsons over the Krusty for Kongress episode (although they wisely backed down when Matt Groening stuck it out, no doubt assuming that Rupert Murdoch would not be so keen to pay the bills to sue himself!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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