Tag Archive for: McDonald’s

Day five of Andre McDonald’s murder trial over wife’s death


Air Force Major Andre McDonald faces life in prison if found guilty of killing his wife, Andreen McDonald, in 2019.

SAN ANTONIO — The accused killer’s former boss took the witness stand on day five of the Andre McDonald trial, revealing new insight into the U.S. Air Force major’s behavior.

Andre McDonald faces life in prison if found guilty of killing his wife, Andreen McDonald, in 2019. His trial started Monday.

His former supervisor from Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland testified Friday and described the defendant’s demeanor when news broke about Andreen’s disappearance.

Lieutenant Colonel Steven Chetelat served as McDonald’s superior officer in the Cyber Warfare Unit at Lackland Air Force Base.

Chetelat visited McDonald at his home on March 1, 2019, the day Andreen was reported missing. He testified that he came to check on McDonald to see if he needed anything and brought McDonald some fast food. Chetelat said he wanted to make sure he was being treated fairly, focusing most of the conversation on his family’s safety. 

During the three-hour visit, law enforcement was present and documenting evidence as a result of a search warrant. He described McDonald as “calm and leveled” at the time. 

“I found it potentially peculiar. By mirror imaging I thought I would probably be bouncing off the walls, Chetelat said.

After McDonald’s arrest on March 3, Chetelat says McDonald started working from home three days a week. He also testified that McDonald never expressed a desire to help search for Andreen.

The five-month search for Andreen involved the multiple community-led efforts and organizations.

Clifton Klabunde also took the stand, recalling the moment he came across human bones in a rural field of north Bexar County. 

Klabunde…

Source…

Burger King Fights Proxy War Against McDonald’s Over Hungry Jack Trademark Dispute

As one of the largest private employers in the world, it probably shouldn’t come as too big a surprise that McDonald’s is fairly protective of its trademarks. The company, large legal coffers though it has, is not undefeatable, however. It was only a year or so ago, for instance, that McDonald’s famously lost its “Big Mac” trademark in Europe when another chain, Supermacs, got it cancelled as it expanded into more European markets.

Well, now Mcdonald’s is facing another trademark issue in Australia. Down Under, there is a fast food chain called Hungry Jack’s, which is actually a part of Burger King. Burger King, of course, is McDonald’s chief global rival. There is something of a proxy war currently being waged over Hungry Jack’s “Big Jack” sandwich, with McDonald’s crying trademark infringement over its “Big Mac” trademark.

McDonald’s Asia-Pacific filed Federal Court proceedings on August 28 against Hungry Jack’s over its rival’s new burger trademark, which it claims is “substantially identical with or deceptively similar” to its own Big Mac trademark.

Hungry Jack’s has been the owner of the registered trademark “Big Jack” since November last year but McDonald’s says the trademark “is liable to be cancelled, and should in the exercise of the court’s discretion be cancelled” on a number of grounds, including that it is “likely to deceive or cause confusion” among consumers.

So let’s stipulate immediately that the rival for McDonald’s absolutely constructed a sandwich burger that has a lot of similarities to a Big Mac. The construction of the food is similar and the names both have the word “Big” in them, and then culminate in designators for the companies selling them, but those names rhyme. Big Mac. Big Jack. You get it.

So, with all of that stipulated, is this trademark infringement? Well, as always, that comes down to the question of whether there will be public confusion as to the source of the products. And Hungry Jack’s is apparently prepared to argue that there won’t be.

In a defence filed in the Federal Court on Friday, lawyers for Hungry Jack’s said consumers were “well aware” of the “competitive rivalry between Hungry Jack’s and [McDonald’s]” and it had not infringed the latter’s trademarks. Consumers would not be deceived into thinking the Big Jack was a McDonald’s product, they said.

Hungry Jack’s said it was entitled to use the Big Jack trademark, which played on the company’s name and the name of “its founder and current owner, Jack Cowin”. The word Jack was “closely associated by consumers with Hungry Jack’s’ goods and services”, the company’s lawyers said.

Add to the above that much of the complaints McDonald’s lodges aren’t relevant in a trademark dispute. The recipe for the sandwich doesn’t really matter, unless McDonald’s has trademarked this construction. If it has done so, it certainly hasn’t said as much. The word “Big” in the name of each product basically doesn’t matter, since it is both descriptive and in common use in trademarks all over the place. Instead, this is going to come down to whether “Jack” is too similar to “Mac”, sufficiently so to lead to public confusion.

Which is where Hungry Jack’s point is made. The rivalry between these two is as famous in Australia as Burger King versus McDonald’s is in America. Given that notoriety, and the simple fact that the dispute is over two words that very specifically designate the origin of the product, it’s hard to imagine the public being confused by any of this.

In other words, it would seem that McDonald’s would need to bring instances of actual confusion to court to make this lawsuit successful.

Techdirt.

McDonald’s fan explains how she gets Big Mac and fries for just £1.99 using old receipts

A MCDONALD’S fan has explained how to get a Big Mac and medium fries for just £1.99 by using old receipts. The tasty trick saves you around £2.29 compared to the original price of the food. All …
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McDonald’s fans share their best McHacks to make your meal REALLY happy – including a foolproof way to get fresh chips

FROM the secret menu to unusual food combinations, there are plenty of McDonald’s hacks floating around on the Internet. And now fans are sharing their very best tips for making every meal a …
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