Court says Skype's name is too similar to Sky's

There are 82 English dictionary words that contain the word &quot;Sky.&quot; 63 of those words start with the word &quot;Sky.&quot; Therefore by logical extension of this ruling, they have at minimum given Sky free trademarks on 82 additional words. That doesn&#x27;t even include made up words like &quot;Skype.&quot;<p>These types of decisions are going to massively limit the number of trademarkable words available for businesses to register in general. It wasn&#x27;t even like Sky and Skype are directly competing with one another (VoIP&#x2F;Chat&#x2F;Video over Ip Vs. Satellite TV). Or that Skype was trying to feed off of Sky&#x27;s reputation or brand.<p>This ruling is simply terrible. It is terrible within itself and sets an even worse precedent. The EU needs to pass additional laws clarifying this so that courts cannot reach these kind of conclusions.

I&#x27;m still befuddled that you can trademark a name like Sky or Apple. I&#x27;m more befuddled that the EU courts would block registration of a trademark that is already widely known as a brand name and that the plaintiff in this case <i>isn&#x27;t even challenging</i> as an infringement on their trademark.

That&#x27;s satire, right? Right? ❝the likelihood of the element &#x27;Sky&#x27; being recognised within the word element &#x27;Skype&#x27;, for clouds are to be found &#x27;in the sky&#x27; and thus may readily be associated with the word &#x27;sky&#x27;.❞<p>Not really related, but it reminds me of another funny occurrence concerning trademarks: O2 (the phone company) sued Weinmann GmbH (a medical device company). Weinmann used the string O2 in a product that delivers oxygen to patients... (<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;sci.tech-archive.net&#x2F;Archive&#x2F;sci.physics&#x2F;2005-03&#x2F;8371.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;sci.tech-archive.net&#x2F;Archive&#x2F;sci.physics&#x2F;2005-03&#x2F;8371...</a>)<p>Sometimes I question inhofar &quot;common sense&quot; prevails in these trademark-ruling courts.

Reminds me of this back in the 2003 where Microsoft went after a high school kid for having the domain mikerowesoft.com (his name being Mike Rowe):<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Microsoft_vs._MikeRoweSoft" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Microsoft_vs._MikeRoweSoft</a><p>It ended alright for Mike Rowe in the end, but Microsoft only offered $10 originally and accused him of cybersquatting which was false. It was only after a bunch of press that he got some decent return.

Skype was released in 2003 and personally I don&#x27;t associate it with &quot;sky&quot;. If Skype can&#x27;t be trademark, then the trademark law is broken.

Seems like Sky has a thing for Microsoft - first they were forced to rename SkyDrive to OneDrive and now this.

Where is the Late Peter Cook when you need him<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=Kyos-M48B8U" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=Kyos-M48B8U</a><p>For background there was a court case back in the 70&#x27;s (the leader of a political party was accused of arranging a contract killing on his gay lover) a high profile court case with an outrageously biased judge.

This is what happens when you name your company something like &quot;Sky&quot; or &quot;Paper&quot;

Wow, they literally &quot;own the sky&quot;.

Since Skype is by far the more popular (and important) service, I suppose &quot;Sky&quot; should change their name ;-)<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.skymedia.co.uk&#x2F;Audience-Insight&#x2F;dashboard.aspx" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.skymedia.co.uk&#x2F;Audience-Insight&#x2F;dashboard.aspx</a>

First SkyDrive, now Skype? What is this company&#x27;s deal with attacking Microsoft and others over a very very generic word?<p>For what it&#x27;s worth, Sky is only 60% of Skype, and Skype has 2 more letters.

Are they also going to go after the two dozen or so airlines that have &#x27;Sky&#x27; in their name...?

skype well known world wide. sky known only in UK. I am from europe, and only remember sky exist when MS decide change skydrive to onedrive, or when skype not allowed get trademark.

It is like saying &quot;Hat&quot; is too similar to &quot;Hate&quot;.

TIL in Europe you are literally not allowed to pe under the sky.

More nonsense protectionism from EU power brokers.