McDonald's v. L.C. Big Mak

Summary

This landmark intellectual property case involved McDonald's Corporation's claim that L.C. Big Mak Burger, Inc.'s use of 'Big Mak' for hamburger sandwiches infringed its registered 'Big Mac' trademark and constituted unfair competition. The trial court found infringement using the dominancy test, but the Court of Appeals reversed, applying the holistic test and finding no confusion due to packaging differences. The Supreme Court reinstated the trial court's decision, explicitly rejecting the holistic test in favor of the dominancy test established in Philippine jurisprudence. The Court found 'Big Mak' and 'Big Mac' aurally identical and visually confusingly similar when applied to the same hamburger products, constituting trademark infringement. The decision clarified that likelihood of confusion, not actual confusion, is the test for infringement, and reinforced the dominancy test as the proper standard for determining confusing similarity in trademark cases.