EU court finds Skype name too similar to Sky

In a dispute over naming rights between corporate titans, Microsoft and its free VoIP brand Skype lost out to Rupert Murdoch's television brand British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB) yesterday in a EU court.

Judges at the General Court of the European Union in Luxembourg upheld a complaint lodged by the UK broadcaster a decade ago with the EU trademark authority in which it said the Skype name and logo risked being confused by consumers because they sounded and looked too similar to "Sky".

Microsoft is expected to appeal the ruling. The court ruling upheld decisions by the trademark office in 2012 and 2013 that had prevented the registration of the Skype name but had not blocked its use by the business.

The judges also ruled that the service's cloud-like logo "would further increase the likelihood of the element 'Sky' being recognized within the word element 'Skype.' "

Microsoft  had lost a similar case with BSkyB years ago, which led to the company completely changing the name of its cloud service from SkyDrive to OneDrive.

However, in the latest battle, Microsoft would not need to change Skype's name, it cannot file a trademark registration for only the product's name and logo.

"The case was not a legal challenge to Skype's use of the mark, it was only against the registration," a Microsoft spokesperson said. "We're confident that no confusion exists between these brands and services and will appeal. This decision does not require us to alter product names in any way."

According to the tech giant, it had other measures in place to prevent European companies from using the name and logo of its popular chat messenger, even if it could not legally register them in the continent.

Besides the two cases against Microsoft, BSkyB also took Livescribe to court for its Sky smartpens, forcing company to withdraw the product from its UK store. According to commentators, any company manufacturing a product with the word "sky" in its name would rather think of an alternative before releasing it in Europe.