McDonald's Ice Cream Machine Company Hit With Restraining Order: What You Need To Know

The company that makes McDonald’s Corp.’s MCD McFlurry ice cream machines has received a temporary restraining order after being sued by a company that created a diagnostic tool designed to repair the frequently malfunctioning machines.

What Happened: The McFlurry may not have achieved the same level of pop culture celebration as the perennial Big Mac or the March favorite, Shamrock Shake, because the ice cream machines made by Taylor Company have a strange habit of breaking down frequently.

According to a report in Vice, the start-up company Kytch Inc. created the Kytch Solution Device that could identify and fix the ice cream machines. However, Kytch complained that Taylor intentionally created a “flawed code that caused the machines to malfunction,” thus enabling it to have a monopoly profit on machine repairs.

Kytch filed a lawsuit against Taylor in May, claiming that Taylor made multiple attempts under fake names and email addresses to acquire Kytch Solution Device in order to determine how it worked.

Taylor acknowledged that it came to possess the tool. The lawsuit also alleged that Taylor lobbied McDonald’s franchisees not to use the Kytch product, even claiming that it could lead to “serious human injury.”

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What Happens Next: "These guys did a really effective job at frightening off all of our customers and investors so we’re hoping the public will support our case in the name of justice, right to repair and humanity," said Kytch co-founder Jeremy O’Sullivan to Vice. "We still have some diehard customers sticking with us. Though few in comparison to what we once had before McDonald’s and Taylor called our product dangerous."

The court ordered Taylor to turn over its Kytch Solution Devices and "not use, copy, disclose, or otherwise make available in any way information, including formula, pattern, compilation, program, device, method, technique, or process obtained by any of them."

McDonald’s Corp. did not publicly comment on the story.

Photo: A McFlurry in a London McDonald's. Photo by Magnus D / Wikimedia Commons.