Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of McDonald's trademarks


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   delete. For the reasons given by the nominator and Metropolitan90, WP:V and WP:NPOV compel the deletion of this article, which is a list of alleged trademarks sourced only to a McDonalds publication. Who owns a certain trademark can be a very contentious question, as trademarks need not always be registered, and McDonalds trademarks in particular have been legally contentious, see McDonald's legal cases. It is out of the question for a neutral, verifiable encyclopedia to present as a fact McDonald's own claims about which trademarks it owns. Any such article would need, for each entry, a reference to the applicable trademark registration or to a reliable third-party source addressing the legal status of the mark in question. The "keep" opinions which disregard or misunderstand the significance of neutrality and verifiability as applied to trademarks are therefore discounted.  Sandstein  07:59, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

List of McDonald&
AfDs for this article: 
 * – ( View AfD View log ) •

A bare list of trademarks owned by the McDonald's Corporation does not seem to be an appropriate thing for an encyclopedia. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. The only source provided for the list is a link to the terms and conditions of the McDonald's Internet site—there are no references to significant coverage by reliable third-party sources, as required by the notability guideline. (There are some third-party sources in the references section, but these are used in the infobox, not in the list itself.) In addition, I know that many dictionaries include a disclaimer such as, "A number of entered words which we have reason to believe constitute trademarks have been designated as such. However, no attempt has been made to designate as trademarks or service marks all terms or words in which proprietary rights might exist. The inclusion, exclusion, or definition of a word or term is not intended to affect, or to express a judgment on, the validity or legal status of the word or term as a trademark, service mark, or other propriety [sic] term" (quoted from the Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary). I am not a lawyer, but the existence of such disclaimers suggests to me that there may be some legal issue involved with making claims about whether something is or is not a trademark. If so, Wikipedia is certainly not qualified to make such claims. —Bkell (talk) 16:53, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Business-related deletion discussions.  -- Jclemens-public (talk) 17:06, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Really weak keep - it does need sources and I am sure that they can be found with some research. If McDonald's does provide a list of their trademarks, then it is verifiable - even if it is a primary source. --Jeremy (blah blah • I did it!) 20:21, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Verifiability was not one of the several concerns I raised in my nomination. —Bkell (talk) 00:07, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

 Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Ron Ritzman (talk) 01:05, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 02:41, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Merge into McDonalds: Really, this list is mainly trivial, but for the five people who want to see trademarks licenced to McDonalds, let's merge it into the McDonalds page itself. RomeEonBmbo (talk) 03:02, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete. No sources have been provided for the main body of this article other than McDonald's own web page. There may be an article to be written about McDonald's trademarks, although the subject is already discussed more substantively at McDonald's legal cases. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 03:29, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.


 * Merge to McDonald's legal cases, alternatively, Weak keep. - The Bushranger Return fire Flank speed 04:40, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep. I don't see a problem with notability. A quick search for McDonalds trademarks produced 1,800 news stories. Verifiability isn't so easy, but I think using the McDonald's source is OK. --Pnm (talk) 09:15, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete, seems to be a stretch to me on something we should have an article on; indiscriminate. Wizardman  Operation Big Bear 17:49, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.