McDonald’s loses its ‘Big Mac’ (but only in Europe)
ROME – A small Irish fast food chain has won a lawsuit that had been going on for seven years against the global hamburger giant: McDonald’s (at least in Europe) will no longer be able to use the Big Mac brand exclusively. In fact, in 2017, the Irish company Supermac's applied for the revocation of the EU trademark ‘Big Mac’ requesting that the exclusivity be revoked […]
ROME – A small Irish fast food chain has won a lawsuit that had been going on for seven years against the global hamburger giant: McDonald’s (at least in Europe) will no longer be able to use the Big Mac brand exclusively. In 2017, in fact, the Irish company Supermac’s had submitted an application for the revocation of the EU ‘Big Mac’ trademark, asking for the exclusivity to be revoked and has now obtained the green light to use it in your products. The European Court of Justice, however, excluded from the intellectual protection of the trademark only sandwiches with chicken and all products based on poultry because Mcdonalds would not have “given genuine proof of having used that trademark continuously over a five-year period in the European Union”.
The European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) initially granted Supermac’s request, but later reaffirmed trademark protection for McDonald’s ‘Big Mac’ burgers on appeal. Now the ruling of the Luxembourg court has been overturned: McDonald’s cannot claim protection, but for the chicken version of its iconic hamburger, while the original beef version remains a registered trademark.
An example: McDonald’s Chicken Big Mac, which contains chicken, cheese, lettuce, onions, pickles and special Big Mac sauce can no longer be called ‘Big Mac’.