There's this Australian rugby enthusiast, Malcolm McBratney, who is a sponsor of his local team, Brisbane Irish, which uses his nickname, McBrat, as a logo on the players' clothing. Last year he applied to register McBrat with the Australian trademark office, IP Australia, only to be opposed by our old litigious friend McDonald's, hero of the English McLibel litigation, one of the great public relations disasters of our time.

So does McDonald's Australia have its own McBrat trademark, and was it understandably objecting to someone else copying it? Well, no, but it does own a trademark called McKids, and claims (seriously) that people will be confused between the two. (Does a kid equal a brat in Australia?) But presumably McKids is an established name in the selling of clothing similar to Mr McBratney's product? Well, no. In fact, the McKids trademark hasn't been used for clothing at all; it's used for toys. Is McBratney trying to sell toys? No. So the burger people are trying to stop someone with a different name from selling something which they don't sell anyway? Yup.

One thing McDonald's may not have known when it started mixing it with McBratney is that he's a lawyer - as it happens, a specialist in intellectual property. Trademarks. And he's now taking legal action against the corporation seeking to divest it of the McKids trademark which, since it was registered in 1987, has never been used for clothing.

"What it boils down to" he muses, "is that McDonald's seems to be trying to own not only the McDonald name, but everything beginning with Mc."  
 
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