[JackuB]

So I went in an read the actual ruling document https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Bi... (only 8 pages) and it pretty much made sense for me (IANAL ofc).

McD’s lawyers screwed up, not submitting required evidence of actual use in years 2011-2016. They printed out webpages with promo materials and a wikipedia page (as article correctly points, “duh, we are McDonalds”) - not a great proof of anything for any court. Then submitted some packaging of the product.

Not any evidence that the product was actually sold and trademark used in those five years - no sales figures, website traffic stats… As said, makes sense to me

Edit: that said, still makes no sense why were they challenging the use of Big Mac in the first place… shrugs

[mattmanser]

The Irish firm has 'mac' in their name.

Supermac’s said it can now expand in the United Kingdom and Europe. It said it had never had a product called “Big Mac” but that McDonald’s had used the similarity of the two names to block the Irish chain’s expansion.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mcdonald-s-corp-trademark...

From the other articles I've seen about this the implication is that the judgement was probably heavily influenced by McDonald's own anti-competitive shenanigans of trademarking names of competitors products:

The US chain had also trademarked the term “SnackBox,” an offering by Supermac's that McDonald’s does not offer.

https://www.irishcentral.com/culture/food-drink/supermacs-mc...

[philliphaydon]

Ah I initially got confused because I thought supermac was some bigger Big Mac I had not heard of and went to Google. Disappointed now.

[Svip]

Newspaper articles talking about Big Macs would also have helped. And if you are unwilling to release sales figures or website traffic statistics, newspaper articles are a decent alternative option.