Brand Names in stories

[Mon0Zer0]

Are there any stories that use pre-existing brand names / companies in them, specifically in a critical or satirical way? Do you open yourself up to litigation or barriers to publishing by doing so? How do you get round this?

The only one I'm aware of is Judge Dredd's The Cursed Earth which had marauding street gangs lead by Ronald McDonald, which was initially banned due to a lawsuit following the use of trademarked logos, but subsequently reissued following a change in a European directive allowing for parody using copyrighted characters. As prose doesn't use images, is this applicable?

 

[The Judge]

Threads on aspects of this have cropped up from time to time on Chrons eg a couple from last year Brand Names, the old usage issue question. and Using real brand names and one a good bit older Brand names in fiction (I'm sure there are more, somewhere)