McMansions (was: Boughten bread)

[Laurence Horn]

At 6:09 PM -0500 12/10/03, Dave Wilton wrote:
>  > Here in the Santa Cruz area there is a vegetarian restaurant called
>>  "Dharma's".  Originally, some twenty years ago or so, it had been named
>>  "McDharma's", until Ronald McDonald & Co. took umbrage and sued.
>>  Being a commercial application, perhaps they had a legally justifiable
>>  defense of trademark, but not a good sense of humor.
>
>McDonald's would seem to be justified in this one. Both are restaurants (or
>McDonald's at least has pretenses at being one). The chief purpose of
>trademark law is to distinguish one product from another, so businesses in
>the same industry are the most vulnerable to trademark infringement.
>
>The decision in the "McSleep" suit is questionable. AFAIK, McDonald's is not
>in the hotel business.
>
>Suing a dictionary for including "McJob" would simply be silly and probably
>laughed out of court. Not to say that McDonald's might not try...

And speaking of Raven--does anyone know if the "McDavid" chain in
Jerusalem (and maybe Tel Aviv--I can't remember), which I assume are
kosher fast food emporia, are licensed by McDonald's?  For all I
know, they're a subfranchise of Mickey (a.k.a. Moishe) D's.

L