14 DAY TRIAL // Europe is becoming a rather hostile market for Microsoft, and after the hefty fine it received in 2011 for antitrust violations, the company is having serious trademark issues because of the name of some of its products.
The General Court of the European Union ruled that Microsoft cannot register a trademark for Skype in Europe because the name is too similar to “Sky,” the name currently owned by the Sky Broadcasting Group, also known as BSKyB or Sky News Corporation.
Basically, the judge said that Microsoft's Skype name could be confused with the one of Sky, so a trademark cannot be registered right now to get the rights over this name.
This doesn't mean that Microsoft needs to rename Skype right now, but it might have to do so in the coming months in order to avoid paying a fee to the British company owning the rights for Sky.
Microsoft will appeal
Microsoft has already expressed its intention to appeal the decision and has said that it doesn't plan to rename Skype until a final ruling is announced.
“We’re confident no confusion exists between these brands and services and will appeal. This decision does not require us to alter product names in any way,” a company spokesperson explains.
Sky, on the other hand, says that this is a fair ruling because the similarities between the two names could indeed confuse European customers.
“This relates to a long-running dispute with Skype over the extensions of its trademark applications to cover a broad range of goods and services that overlap with Sky's own trademark registration - including, but not limited to, TV-related products and services. Our intention has been to protect the Sky brand with our research showing that similarities in name and logo have the potential to confuse customers.”
What's even worse for Microsoft is that this isn't the first time it loses a trademark dispute in Europe, as the very same company forced the software giant to rename SkyDrive to OneDrive because its name was too similar to Sky. Redmond complied and renamed its cloud-based storage service and it might do it again, this time with Skype, if the next judge doesn't rule in its favor.