Hail and Farewell

The franchisee who developed and named the Big Mac died on Monday night. Jim Delligatti, an early franchisee of Ray Croc’s, ran several McDonald’s in the Pittsburgh area (he ended up with nearly 50 stores). The first Big Mac sold in Mr. Delligatti’s restaurant on McKnight Road in Ross Township for $0.45 … that’s right, the first Big Macs sold for 45 cents.

Ray Croc and his business advisors must have seen the genius of that sandwich and McDonald’s ran with it. All those “two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun” started in Pittsburgh and went franchise-wide in 1968.

Mr. Delligatti was 98.

McDonald's loses trademark battle in Malaysia


 
McDonald’s loses trademark battle in Malaysia — chicagotribune.com.

Bad news for the home of the Big Mac. As described in this article from the Chicago Tribune, Malaysia does not view “Mc…” as associated with restaurants and food as a prefix to the intellectual property of McDonald’s Corporation. 

Unlike the United States, which forced the closure of McBagels based on the use of “Mc…” in the food industry being deemed confusingly similar to McDonald’s famous mark, Malaysia has held that McCurry, ostensibly an abbreviation for “Malaysian Chicken Curry” is not rendered confusingly similar to McDonald’s famous mark merely by the addition of the “Mc” prefix.

I don’t know about anyone else, but when I hear that “Mc” in association with food, I immediately think of McDonald’s. I wonder what the Malaysian court thinks of? Actually, I wonder what they were thinking of?