505 karma · joined October 19, 2016
In this case, the original complaint was by McDonald's saying that customers would confused the "mac" in Supermac's with the Big Mac. Using your analogy it would like having a company called "Mouse House" that sells anthropomorphic mice characters.
They have lost it for the "Chicken Big Mac" and in relation to opening/operating restaurants. I think the original disagreement was due to McDonald's blocking the Supermac's brands expanding outside of Ireland, their reasoning being that customers would be confused between the Big Mac and Supermac's. Supermac's defense was that McDonald's hadn't exercised their Big Mac trademark with respect to operating a restaurant for over 5 years, hence now they've lost it, opening the door for Supermac's to expand into the rest of the EU.
Even Wikipedia erroneously catalogues "Ireland" under "Republic of Ireland".