The fast food giant McDonald's has lost a David v Goliath legal battle against a Malaysian curry restaurant which used the term 'McCurry'.
The eight-year legal dispute ended when Malaysia's highest court ruled in favour of the curry house, in Kuala Lumpur.
After the trademark battle, the federal court rejected a McDonald's Corporation appeal against an earlier judgement that had allowed the curry restaurant to use the 'Mc' prefix. McDonald's was also ordered to pay costs.
The owner of McCurry, which includes fish-head curry on its menu, successfully argued that the name stood for Malaysian chicken curry.
McDonald's gets very touchy when it feels its name is being taken in vain, and once attempted to force the Oxford English Dictionary to change its definition of the word 'McJob'.
However, the US company's efforts to protect its name have sometimes backfired.
In the mid-90s, it tried force a restaurant called McDonald's in Kingston, Jamaica, to change its name to avoid confusion.
But the restaurant, which sold curried goat and jerk chicken, won the case and a Jamaican judge ordered the US McDonald's to call itself Golden Arches.
Then there was the 15-year UK McLibel saga over a critical pamphlet by two British activists.
Dave Morris and Helen Steel, a postman and an unemployed gardener, secured a partial victory against McDonald's, resulting in embarrassing media coverage of the fast food giant.
Lawyers must be lovin' it.
