Business

Monday September 14, 2009

The day a US' Goliath lost to Malaysia's David

Monday Starters - By Soo Ewe Jin


IN any battle between a David and a Goliath, my natural instinct is to cheer for David.

That a little restaurant in Jalan Ipoh would take on a global fast food giant and win is certainly the kind of story that would elicit a smile across the faces of many, as my colleague Jagdev Singh Sidhu eloquently puts it in his column Making a Point last Thursday.

But there is more to the verdict handed down by the Federal Court than a simple case of allowing every David to triumph against Goliath.

The written judgment has not been released but, considering that the apex court confirmed the ruling of the Court of Appeal, it would be instructive to see how that court had overturned the High Court ruling earlier.

The April 27 judgment was written by Justice Gopal Sri Ram and concurred by Justice Heliliah Mohd Yusof and Justice Sulong Matjeraie.

It is interesting to note the number of products with the prefix “Mc” that are trademark-protected, as revealed during the appeal.

They include McChicken, McMuffin, McRendang, McValue meals, McNuggets, McCrispy, McEgg, McMonday, McTwist, McWings, McSausage, McSpaceship, McTeddy Bears, McCafe, MvWatchables, McWednesday and McNews.

Obviously McRendang would have been a Malaysian initiative.

Two cases cited involved two other restaurants, McIndian and McChina, for which the verdict went in two different directions.

McIndian lost the case because apart from Indian food, it also served Southern fried chicken, cheeseburgers, French fries and shakes, which are the very items that McDonald’s also sells.

On the other hand, McChina won because it was only selling Chinese food.

In the case of McCurry, it only sold Indian food and the Court of Appeal said the High Court was wrong to use the McIndian case to rule in favour of McDonald’s.

The judge, however, did say that the conclusion might be different if McCurry had also offered items like McFish or McLamb.

So, depending on the circumstances of the case, the Federal Court ruling is not really a blank cheque for every restaurant anywhere in the world to affix the “Mc” to its name. You can be sure that their lawyers will be watching.

The bigger issue, I feel, is how do we lay exclusive claim to something simply because of a historical linkage or the fact that we were the first to trademark or patent the idea?

Recently, I met up with an entrepreneur, Yusra Sabar, who has carved out an interesting business locally in rearing fish.

He wanted to make his business more global so he named his company iCage, which I thought was very appropriate.

He found that he could register the company with the same name everywhere except in the US where the name had already been registered. Well, no prizes for guessing which company has laid claim to that name, along with any other i-combination you can think of.

And now we have this problem between two neighbours over Negara Ku, Rasa Sayang, batik, a dance, maids and anything else that we care to make an issue of.

I recall the time I was on a journalism programme for Asean journalists in Europe and my colleague and I, together with three Indonesians, taught our Thai and Filipino counterparts and our Mat Salleh hosts to sing Rasa Sayang.

At the farewell party, the five of us decided to present a combined item with another popular Malay number Geylang Sepaku Geylang.

As we came to the chorus, Pulang, marilah pulang, marilah pulang, bersama-sama .., everyone joined in. We held hands. And the tears just flowed. Such is the joy of sharing.

·Deputy executive editor Soo Ewe Jin believes that McCurry’s Suppiah and his wife can expect more people to show up at their outlet in Ipoh Road. They had better make sure their service is fast.

Related Stories:

Why did we go lower in the world competitiveness ranking?

US' McDonald's loses trademark fight against M'sian McCurry (Update 2)

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