Willow ,'First Date'
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I guess I have a problem with a foreign company challenging the right of an actual McDonald highlander to use their clan name.
In Jamaica, we held Mickey D's from using the name for years. It's *not* a Scottish we-had-the-name-first thing at all. And it's not an our-family-is-so-powerful thing either, since a) irrelevant to corporate America and b) not true, as you admit.
Whoa. This is some thread drift.
I have no idea what my point was.
Zoe-it's kind of like here in America when an actor joins the union. Each actor has to have a different name so there is no confusion (otherwise half the actors in the world would change their name to George Clooney). A friend went to join and his name, the name he had been known by for 21 years, was already taken, so he used a nickname and his father's name and came up with Jason Alexander. A week later another actor, actually named Jason Alexander (he is the son of a pretty well-known amercian actress named Jane Alexander) went in , but of course his name was already taken. It doesn't mean his name isn't a good and noble one, just that someone had prior legal claim to it for purposes of business. That's all trademarks are--they serve to avoid fraud.
OK
Say you started a cat -grooming business named Finch's. Which is your name. And you were doing well. And you trademarked the name "Finch's Cat Grooming". And someone moved in accross town. There name is also Finch. They, too start a cat grooming business. Your patrons who live nearer to that cat grooming business assume that you have opened up a new branch and go there instead. you are now losing business-- BUT because you have trademarked your name, you can ask them to change.
Now granted, sometimes name things are stupid (the Lexus people suing lexis-nexis, like anyone would get them confused.) But I am assuming this is where it all started. Also, this now has nothing to do with Buffy, and I will try to shut up.
But the McDonald's restaurant was started by people named McDonald. They didn't just grab the name; it was theirs.
So they were called MacDonald, that doesn't give them exclusive rights to the name. Hell The MacDonalds of Skye could have withheld rights 100s of years ago for the sake of pride if it had ever occurred to them to be so petty -and the MacDonalds of Skye were GOOD at petty if it had swords and hacking people to bits involved.
Not just theirs.
But is it less theirs for having been born in the US? Less Scottish, sure, but really the only way to prevent that sort of thing happening is to clamp down on emigration and make name changes illegal.
Not just theirs.
But they're not saying they have the right to the name as a name. They're saying they have the right to the name as a name of a fast food restaurant.
It doesn't mean his name isn't a good and noble one, just that someone had prior legal claim to it for purposes of business. That's all trademarks are--they serve to avoid fraud.
See: Jones, David. AKA David Bowie.
The MacDonalds were and are into business too!
Heck! I want to crab a claymore stand up and yell FREEDOM, I gotta chill!
Hell The MacDonalds of Skye could have withheld rights 100s of years ago for the sake of pride if it had ever occurred to them to be so petty -and the MacDonalds of Skye were GOOD at petty if it had swords and hacking people to bits involved.
Yeppers! That's my stepfather's clan. He's awfully proud of his ancestry, but refuses to wear a kilt, which is probably a good thing from an aesthetic standpoint.
Speaking of McDonald/McDonalds, etc., he had absolutely no trouble calling his own business McDonald ________. Since it wasn't fast food and was in no danger of being mistaken as such, there wasn't even the whiff of a lawsuit.
And in fact the McDonald's issue brings up an interesting point, if not the one intended. I think what you are describing is actually wrong, but not for the reason given. I don't think it is that it is an old name.
Copyright and trademark have gone crazy. The original intent of copyright was to given innovators an incentive to work at it full time. The original intent of trademark was to prevent fraud - to prevent one business person from taking advantage of the reputation of another by pretending to be that person or part of that business. Both have been expanded into new property forms. It is a new taking for the commons where "The sheep devour the men". The Brits do this as much as the Americans. For example I once worked for Petrobras the Brazilian national oil company. It's trademark was a variation on the Brazilian flag. A British court held that invalid, because the colors were the same as BPS and since both were oil companies this could cause confusion. In short the national oil company of the Brazilian state was forbidden to use the Brazilian Flag! I would say that is worse than the the McDonalds thing. But really they are all part of the same thing - not American arrogance, but corporate power.