Jimi, it was Ray Kroc.

The brothers (name escapes me) who started what we know as "McDonald's" bought the hamburger joint from the original owners. They kept the name and started expanding the number of "restaurants" using the moniker.

I'm pretty sure it's the other way around. The McDonald brothers started it, then Ray Kroc expanded it. ( [link] )

Little known fact I read in LA times back when I lived in LA. Somewhere in a small town, there is a hamburger joint name McDonalds that has nothing to do witht the chain. Since it started before the chain, there is nothing the chain can do about it. Occasionally, the legal department of the corporate giant does send a letter to remind them they have no right to open a second resteraunt with that name. The non-chain McDonalds Hamburger joint owners laugh because they have no intention of expanding, in any case.

Typo, if you didn't mean to joke about the logic, then I'm not insulted-- but that is the law. Limiting a mark to one or two things makes it more protectable than trying to save for yourself six or seven marking things.

Think of it this way: what is a can of soda with a red and white outside? It's a Coke. The soda is not red & white. The colors don't suggest soda the same way green and yellow suggests lemon-lime. If you saw another can of soda with a red & white exterior, would you assume it was anything other than a Coke? This is all by way of saying color, by itself, can be distinctive.

I'm pretty sure it's the other way around.

well, I am, generally speaking, arse about face on most things ... but the meaning was there, sort of...

Ray Kroc

I don't care how it's supposed to be pronounced because I'm going to pronounce it to rhyme with "crock" as in what their "hamburgers" are and presumably always have been. Give me a Hungry Jack's (Burger King to you merkins) Whopper any day. :)

billytea ... it's my understanding that the first "narrative film of any significant length" pre-dates that by around 10 years. Moreover, it was in "colour" no less. The Salvation Army in Australia created a movie about the bible some time in the late 1890s.

More about the Salvos' early film work here. It appears the work in question wsa Soldiers of the Cross, first airing in 1900. However, it appears to have been more an illustrated lecture than a film; it consisted of a number of separate 90-second films augmented with slides. Still a great achievement.

Didn't Coca Cola trademark the shape of their bottle?

Honestly, green and yellow petrol company = BP to me. I can see why that's a defensible position.

Didn't Coca Cola trademark the shape of their bottle?

I'm pretty sure they did. I remember reading somewhere that the bottle was designed so that it would be recognizable even if it was broken. (It didn't explain why this was a good thing, though. Yeah, I want the kind of soda that come in that broken bottle!)

I can't be the only one who's had scenes from Coming to America going through my head through this whole discussion?

[Movie where one of the supporting characters is in constant legal battles with McDonalds - he runs a restaurant called McDonnell's, featuring the Big Mc.]

I want the kind of soda that come in that broken bottle!

That's when you know you should drop to the ground and drink the puddle.