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.
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..
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.