Meet Me at McDo's: The Eff ect ofGlobal Expansion on Well-KnownTrademarks

• Date: 01 June 2023
• Author: C. Nicole Gaither

June 27, 2023FEATURE

Meet Me at McDo’s: The Eect of

Global Expansion on Well-Known

Trademarks

C. Nicole Gaither

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©2023. Published in Landslide, Vol. 15, No. 4, June/July 2023, by the American

Bar Association. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved. This

information or any portion thereof may not be copied or disseminated in any

form or by any means or stored in an electronic database or retrieval system

without the express written consent of the American Bar Association or the

copyright holder.

When traveling overseas, some of us become true tourists. We try local

cuisines, shop in local stores, and try local brands. But some of us are more

adventurous. We seek out American brands on foreign soil. We might nd a

product or restaurant that looks familiar—logo, packaging, or signature colors

—but the name is entirely dierent from the one we know.

Your favorite American product might be hard to nd if you do not know its

local brand name. Consider this your “Global Trademark Travel Guide.”

The Product Is Still the Same; It Just Has a

Different Name

Why would major companies with an international presence use a dierent

trademark in other markets? There are a few reasons:

the original trademark has an adverse meaning in the local language;