McDonald’s ain’t lovin’ it
IN a decision sure to ruffle a few loose kilts in the Scottish-mad northern NSW town of Maclean, a Jewish lawyer has lost his battle against McDonald’s to register the business name McKosher.
IN a decision sure to ruffle a few loose kilts in the Scottish-mad northern NSW town of Maclean, a Jewish lawyer has lost his battle against McDonald’s to register the business name McKosher.
Mark Vincent Glaser, principal of Glaser Lawyers, had provided a statement to the Australian Trade Marks Office (ATMO) claiming he is of Scottish Jewish descent, his ancestors’ surnames included McKosher and he intended to open a restaurant with that name in Maclean, which would be “serving kosher meals and products using Scottish and Jewish recipes”.
He also told the ATMO that Maclean’s population prides itself that the town is known as “the Scottish capital of Australia” and prefixes like Mc and Mac are commonly used to describe local events and services there.
The twist in this tartan-infused tale is that McDonald’s argued it holds the trademark rights to the Mc prefix when it comes to food service products.
Furthermore, lawyers representing McDonald’s told the ATMO that the Jerusalem rabbinate is in negotiations with the global fast food chain to certify McDonald’s outlets in Israel’s capital as kosher, but will not do so as long as there are any non-kosher branches in the city.
According to McDonald’s lawyers, “The certifying rabbis fear that a kosher certificate in one branch will mislead the public into assuming that all of the local McDonald’s outlets are kosher. The solution suggested by the rabbinate is a renaming of the kosher McDonald’s branches to ‘McKosher’.”
Earlier this month, the ATMO ruled in favour of McDonald’s in order to avoid any “confusion”.
The AJN contacted Glaser Lawyers to request comment from Glaser, but he did not respond.
SHANE DESIATNIK
comments