THE “Mc” WAR

McCurry


McDonald’s Loses Malaysian McCurry Company Naming Feud. So McDonald’s has lost the McCurry war in Malaysia after a ruling by Malaysia’s Federal Court declared that the McDonald’s trademark was not violated by a small, local Indian restaurant. This is a true (but certainly not unique) David and Goliath story – small time curry joint gets pushed around by the Golden Arches. Not surprisingly, this led to some criticism in the blogosphere, with some people taking McDonald’s side: “There are many people named McCurry but the owners are not one of them. Neither are they Scottish. So it’s a bit weird to pull the ‘common Scottish name’ argument when they are selling Malaysian food.” The owners of the Indian restaurant claim that the “McCurry” naming actually stands for “Malaysian Chicken Curry.” Yeah, we’re sure it does… McDonald’s obviously has an interest in protecting its name.

908_mc

This is really business as usual for a company that has not only tried to persuade The Oxford English Dictionary to remove the word “McJobs” from its publications, while also attempting, unsuccessfully, to force a Jamaican McDonald’s that served curried goat to change its name. This battle is ultimately all about the “Mc” prefix. McDonald’s sees the value in the automatic association it gets from names that start with “Mc,” and rightly so. Unfortunately for McDonald’s, the “Mc” prefix cannot be considered solely theirs. Off of their big win, the McCurry folks now want to start a chain.