<\/p>\n
McDonald’s recently won favour with the EU Office in a case of opposition which it filed against Supermac\u2019s\u00a0trademark application in the European Union, to prevent Supermac from registering its brandname as a trade mark in EU. Supermac had planned a major expansion in the UK, the EU and Australia.<\/p>\n
Supermac is an Irish origin fast food company started by Pat McDonagh, in 1978. The Mighty Mac double burger and the Chicken Snack Box has been popularised since then with revenues now worth of around \u20ac100 million.<\/p>\n
McDonald\u2019s contended in its opposition application that if Supermac’s application was allowed for registration, it would create confusion with the general public. In its objection, McDonald\u2019s argued that there is visual similarity between the two trademarks as they share the phonetically, visually and conceptually identical element of \u2018Mc\/Mac\u2019 and the \u2019s\u2019 is common to both.<\/p>\n
In the decision of the EU office, the office upheld the opposition filed by McDonald against Supermac and restricted Supermac from using the trademark and brand name for its fast food services. However, according to the order, Supermac can use its brand name for other products in EU.<\/p>\n
McDonald had filled the opposition in order to safeguard its already registered trademarks- \u00a0\u2018Big Mac\u2019, \u2018Chicken McNuggets\u2019, \u2018McMuffin\u2019, \u2018McFlurry\u2019 and \u2018McFish\u2019.<\/p>\n
OHIM did not uphold Supermac’s argument that\u00a0the\u00a0brand is being used in Ireland since 1978 and there has never been any confusion between the two brands – McDonald and Supermac.<\/p>\n
However, the OHIM dismissed Mr. McDonagh\u2019s argument as irrelevant because McDonald’s trade mark were registered much earlier than Supermac\u2019s trade-mark application. In its ruling, the OHIM stated that it found \u201cthat there is a likelihood of confusion for the English speaking part of the public in the European Union\u201d.<\/p>\n
Though Supermac has some hope as it can still appeal against the order passed by the OHIM within a period of 4 months from the date of order. After the order has been passed by the Appellate body, we will know whether the supremacy\/monopoly of McDonlad’s trademark and brand name would continue in the European Union or not.<\/p>\n
For any IP related queries please write to us on contact@bananaip.com<\/a>. Our experts will revert to you at the earliest.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Authored by Sambhabi Patnaik<\/p>\n Reference: here<\/a><\/p>\n Image Source\/Attribution here<\/a>, image is in public domain<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" McDonald\u2019s has prevailed in its opposition to Supermac\u2019s trademark application before the EU office, citing potential consumer confusion. The ruling restricts Supermac from using its brand name for fast food services in the EU but allows use for other products, with an option to appeal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":21,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,11],"tags":[7977,7976,7978,180,7094,828,7975,4912],"class_list":["post-34319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-intellectual-property","category-trademarks","tag-brand-name-dispute","tag-eu-intellectual-property","tag-fast-food-law","tag-intellectual-property-rights","tag-mcdonalds","tag-ohim","tag-supermac","tag-trademark-opposition"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34319"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34319\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":134080,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34319\/revisions\/134080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}