Well, 1. and 2. is about contracts between McDonalds and their franchisees, so if a franchise owner feels unfairly harmed by this restriction, then they can sue McDonalds, it's not something about which Kytch should be able to sue Taylor. And, once again, it's perfectly reasonable and very common for franchise agreements to mandate certain suppliers for some products, goods and services, and the close ties don't make it problematic, it's common for some of the suppliers to be wholly owned a subsidiary of the mother company, and it's common for these suppliers to be not very good but as the shared money-maker for the franchise scheme.

There's no fundamental difference between McDonalds franchise contract saying that franchises must use only this ice cream machine and the same contract saying that franchises must make BigMacs only according to this exact recipe. If the franchise operator thinks that the BigMac recipe sucks, they don't get to change it or demand a fix - if McDonalds thinks that's good enough, they can take it or leave it and stop being a McDonalds franchise. The same is regarding McDonalds ice cream process; it may legitimately suck, but it's part of the package deal. If McDonalds wants to buy from Taylor and not from Kytch, that's their choice, effectively McDonalds (and not the franchise operator) is the customer here; and if they are a lousy customer, there are other customers to fight for - IIRC McDonalds bought 25% of Taylor machines, so there are many others out there.

And #3 is not a bad or even a neutral thing - reverse engineering other products is great, please everyone do more of it! Good features should be copied and adopted across the whole market (both in hardware and in software), that's the exact kind of competition that benefits the community; and that's a manifestation of the hacker spirit that should be celebrated, not get shamed about. While legal restrictions such as the excessive patent regime and the excessive length of copyright often prevents people from doing that, in cases where it is not prohibited, this is a good thing to do.

You're missing an important aspect of the lawsuit. Kytch is alleging loss of business due to defamation by McDonald's, be because McDs falsely claimed that the Kytch could harm the Taylor machines.

If Taylor hasn't certified the Kytch product to safely integrate with the Taylor product, it seems reasonable for Taylor to say it could cause problems. If they said it will cause problems, that seems a bit different.

It could cause problems to your already broken machine!

Considering they are connected to each other electrically, yes!

No, because it's already broken. That's the point that was being made and you are not addressing that here.

Your car's broken: oil pan needs to be replaced and it's in the shop. $2,000 repair.

While it's in the shop, it falls off the lift: $10,000 damage. Now your formerly "broken" car is even more broken? Is the situation still the same?

What sort of argumentation is this? You know full well that something broken in one regard can be further broken in an unrelated regard.

Hmm. If Kytch will never certify 3rd-party products, isn't it still irresponsible to say it could. The moon could be made of cheese if nobody checks.

Irresponsible? I don't know, maybe? What responsibility does Taylor have to Kytch in the first place? Certainly no obligation to say "Their product is safe to use on our machine."

Defamatory? I don't think so, but I guess the courts will decide.

The copying invalidates the claim that the original device was harmful.

It was safe enough that they decided to literally copy it. Unless they can provide contemporaneous evidence that they felt there was a specific aspect of it that was harmful.

At this point it seems like the only reason they said it was harmful was to avoid franchisees from using it, which would quite clearly qualify as defamation.

> It was safe enough that they decided to literally copy it.

They "copied" parts of it. We don't know they "copied" it all. I don't know how the device could be harmful, but presumably the harmful parts were not "copied".

Note that i used quotes around copied. I wouldn't use that term because it implies something that is protected by copyright and that doesn't seem to be the case.

> Well, 1. and 2. is about contracts between McDonalds and their franchisees, so if a franchise owner feels unfairly harmed by this restriction, then they can sue McDonalds, it's not something about which Kytch should be able to sue Taylor.

A contract between two parties can unfairly harm a 3rd party. Especially if one of the two parties is abusing its market power to push anticompetitive clauses. For example requiring "authorized" car mechanics to buy only overpriced Ford-branded repair tools. This way Ford uses its car marketshare to push into the repair tool market. Tool manufacturers that don't have a car manufacturer backing them simply can't compete.

Of course Ford would probably argue that the markets are related, and that it has a legitimate interest in ensuring its mechanics use adequate tools. That only its own tools qualify as good enough is just a big coincidence..

1. - As an ex employee - it’s a little bit more complicated than that. The machines have strict daily/weekly protocols for cleaning/maintenance and when they’re not met they “break” and need to have a tech reset them. It’s obviously due to the manufacturer not wanting to be liable for anything from a food poisoning standpoint. I don’t think they have a lower MTBF for “real” failures than competitors.

They do have a lower MTBF than other Taylor machines sold to other fast food chains. McDonalds requires franchises to purchase specific models that are more prone to failure and harder to repair.

Why would they do that?

Maybe because McDonald's and/or Taylor think the average McDonald's employee is less reliable than the industry average restaurant worker. Or maybe McDonald's simply tolerates less liability than the rest and requested the machines be configured in this way. As far as I'm aware, McDonald's hasn't sued Taylor over this, maybe because it was their idea in the first place?

It is the franchisee who pays for repairs. Of course it was McD's idea. They make a cut.

I doubt they make more from repairs than by selling ice cream made by functional machines.

True, but ice cream is expensive. Soda and fries are cheap. Burgers and ice cream get people into the store where they buy soda and fries. And I’m sure many a person has gone to McDonalds wanting ice cream and upon learning the machine is down, decided to get a drink and fries instead.

I haven't seen any actual evidence that Taylor is giving kickbacks to McDonald's. I've only a lot of insinuation and accusation of such a kickback, because the accusers don't seem to consider other possibilities. One possible reason other than a kickback: McDonald's wants the machines to error on the side of food safety and don't trust their own employees to not fuck it up.

McDonalds and Taylor have a very close relationship.

And why would the manufacturer build that? Is it really the razorblade business model?