When The Sky Became Off Limits: The Sky v Skype Decision

The long-running battle initiated by Sky UK against the Microsoft-owned company Skype for the use of "SKY" in its mark has come to a head in the EU.

Although Microsoft had managed to overcome the onslaught of oppositions by Sky UK in Switzerland, Turkey and Brazil, it has failed to convince the General Court of the European Union that there was no likelihood of confusion amongst consumers between 'SKYPE' and 'SKY'.  Therefore the court ruled that Sky's successful challenge to the registration of Skype trade marks should be upheld.

This is not the first such encounter between Sky UK and Microsoft. The previous disagreement was in relation to Microsoft's cloud service, SkyDrive. Following a High Court ruling in favour of Sky UK, Microsoft had renamed its cloud service as OneDrive.