In 1971, Burger King was poised to open its first restaurant in the land down under. However, the popular fast food chain (at this point owned by Pillsbury, via Britannica) discovered that an American named Don Dervan had already opened a restaurant named Burger King. Dervan had noticed that the U.S. brand hadn’t yet expanded to Australia, News.au.com reports, and so he’d snapped up the Australian trademark rights to the name Burger King. The U.S. Burger King brand, not to be deterred, allowed its Australian franchisee Jack Cowin (who is, incidentally, a Canadian by birth; he moved to Australia in 1969, via Domino’s Investors) to name his Australian Burger King franchise something different, according to The Sydney Morning Herald.
Cowin, perhaps with a sense of wry humor, chose a variation on the U.S. Hungry Jack brand name owned by Pillsbury (a pancake mix) and named the new Australian burger-flipping empire Hungry Jack’s. The Southern Pacific fast food empire was born, and the Burger King brand was first called Hungry Jack’s in Australia. As the decades passed and Australians came to love their Hungry Jack’s restaurants, behind the scenes, a tense legal battle played out between the original Australian Burger King brand (owned by Dervan), the Hungry Jack’s brand (owned by franchisee Cowin), and, confusingly, the franchisor, the U.S. Burger King brand (via CBC Radio).