Call it a McBlog and you’ll attract the lawyers…

There’s nothing innocent going on here. Not only is it disappointing that Coca Cola got its mucky paws on to the home-grown Ladbroke Grove-based company that makes “little tasty drinks”: it is yet another case of big business bullying entrepreneurs and small fry who make use of a generic word in their brand name.

Understandably, Dawn Reid didn’t wish to clash with the legal might of Coca Cola in a court battle that could have cost her £60k. She duly changed her company name to Innovitive Vitamins, and turned down Coca Cola’s ‘kind’ offer to pay compensation if she kept quiet about the dispute.

Although Coca Cola failed to gag Dawn Reid, it managed to get its own way over the use of a commonly used adjective, “innocent”. How can you trademark a generic word, you may ask? Although this practice may seem totally unreasonable, there are many known cases of big businesses successfully banning the use of generic words by smaller brands.

In particular, companies such as Coca Cola become hot under the collar when they believe a similar brand name could lead consumers to believe there’s a non-existent affiliation between the two companies; or that the other company’s name may diminish their own trademark in some way. This is known as “trademark dilution”. If we were in a metaphorical pond, the big fish would come along, gobble up the pesky minnows then pour out all the water, so that nothing else could breathe in there.

Although Innocent Vitamins isn’t Coca Cola’s only target, it may be one of the genuinely more innocent ones! When Coca Cola discovered that an energy drink called ‘Cocoine’ was being sold in a red can with white lettering, its lawyers swooped into action. Coca Cola filed opposition to a trademark application for ‘Cocaine’ in Chile, much to the disappointment of yoofs who wanted to take the ‘cool coke cans’ into college. Also on the drinks front, coffee giant Starbucks sued New Hampshire based Wolfe’s Borough Coffee, Inc., aka Black Bear Coffee, over its ‘Mr Charbucks’ blend. However, in a victory for a small business, the defendant won because the judge ruled that coffee-drinking consumers wouldn’t be confused. Out of today’s multinationals, McDonalds is arguably one of the most litigious. Ronald certainly likes to fry his perceived enemies, no matter how small and insignificant they may be. In 2004, the burger giant sued Cebu-based fast food restaurant, MacJoy, over its trade name. Although MacJoy had used the name in Cebu City for five years before McDonald's opened its first outlet there, and the moniker stemmed from its previous ‘MacJoy and Device’ brand name, the legal eagles eventually found in favour of Ronald and ‘MacJoy’ was made to become ‘MyJoy’.

In 1994, McDonald's forced Elizabeth McCaughey of the San Francisco Bay Area to change the name of her coffee shop, ‘McCoffee’, which she had used it for 17 years. Norman McDonald of Kentucky was similarly targeted for his ‘McDonald's Hamburgers; Country Drive-Inn’ which had to become ‘Norman McDonald's Hamburgers; Country Drive-Inn’.

Another unlucky target was Mary Blair, Scottish-born proprietor of the McMunchies sandwich shop in Stratford. She was told that if “someone used the Mc prefix, even unintentionally; they were using something that does not belong to them”. Similarly, hotdog vendor Allan Pedersen was told to stop using the name ‘McAllan’ for his outlet. He had named it after his favourite MacAllan’s whiskey. In this case, McDonald’s failed to stake its claim to the traditional Scottish clan prefix he so desired. Ronald picked up the court costs, which cost considerably more than a burger and fries with that.

Ronald also failed to kick ‘McChunkles Wok Away’, a small Chinese takeaway chain in London, into touch. A sensible judge ruled that the multinational had no right to the ‘Mc’ preface. And, in the further-flung climes of Malaysia, Ronald took a dislike to the ‘McCurry’ restaurant, apparently short for ‘Malaysian Chicken Curry’. The Appeals Court eventually ruled that the big corporate couldn’t claim an exclusive right to the ‘Mc’ prefix in Malaysia. Back in 1956, the company also lost a 26-year legal action against ‘McDonald's Family Restaurant’ in Illinois, which was opened by a man legally named Ronald McDonald.

If nothing else, McDonalds is massively hypocritical. The company behind Fillet-o-Fish et al was successfully sued by the creators of a television show ‘Pufnstuf’, who claimed that their characters had been ripped off by the fast food chain. McDonald’s had to pay the Kroffts more than $1 million. Furthermore, in 1996, British adult comic, Viz, accused McDonald's of plagiarising the name and format of its ‘Top Tips’ feature. It’s just as well that Ronald didn’t also borrow ‘The Fat Slags’ and ‘Sid the Sexist’ for his restaurant chain.

From the bonkers to the totally ridiculous, toy giant, ‘Toys R Us’ sued a company called ‘Guns are We’ for using the domain name ‘gunsareus.com’. The court decided it unlikely that toy-buying consumers would believe Toys R Us had sponsored a website targeting gun dealers. I wait for the day when Chipchase Castle sues me for bringing it into disrepute by writing ‘silly’ press articles under the same name. Or maybe this section of the Argus website should be renamed ‘Blogs R Us’ or the ‘Argus Mc Blog’, with a few pictures of toys and burgers scattered around, and let’s see what happens next…

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