Skype’s at risk for having a name too similar to Sky …

An EU court has said that Skype’s name is too similar to the television broadcaster Sky’s.

This ruling from the court will prevent Microsoft trademarking any of Skype’s current logos and name. So this might be the last we see of the cute, fluffy cloud design they’ve got going on. 

The Fortune 500 Company intends to appeal against the decision. Not a bad shout considering Skype is a pretty established brand and so is their “competitor” for the name. 

commons.wikimedia.org

Judges at the General Court of the European Union said “Conceptually, the figurative element conveys no concept, except perhaps that of a cloud.”

“"[That] would further increase the likelihood of the element 'Sky' being recognised within the word element 'Skype', for clouds are to be found 'in the sky' and thus may readily be associated with the word 'sky'."

Honestly, if people in this day and age haven’t worked out the difference between Sky and Skype, then I don’t know what to suggest. It may be too late now anyway!

The legal clashes between the companies have been ongoing since 2014. It all began when Microsoft created a cloud storage service called SkyDrive – I can see the problem here. It later became OneDrive after the High Court in London insisted upon it. 

A spokeswoman for Microsoft have reassured the public that this current decision from the court will not be having any effects on the current brand:

"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."

They haven’t had much to say on the matter so far. Their statement released says 

"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."

So are they calling their customers a bit silly? I don’t know. 

Sky has become a bit infamous for its actions against rival companies, in 2012 Sky acted against the smartpen-maker Livescribe. The original product was called Sky Wifi and still is in some countries, but not in the UK. 

Maybe brands want to use the positive connotations that Sky have built up for themselves. Maybe Sky should take it as a compliment. But then again, who really likes having their toes stepped on in this way?

On the whole, I can see why a big brand like Sky doesn’t want to become synonymous accidently with other brands. But perhaps this incident was all just one step too far. Skype’s a pretty big deal, after all.