The General Court (one of the constituent parts of the Court of Justice of the European Union, as I have pointed out many times, another part being confusingly called the Court of Justice) has handed down its judgment on whether there is a likelihood of confusion between SKYPE and SKY, and has decided - to no-one's surprise, I imagine - that there is. The press release is here. I see that the Court refers to itself as "the General Court of the European Union", which is not the title given to it by the Treaty.
It is an interesting contest between two weak but fairly well-known (not necessarily in the Article 6bis sense) trade marks. Allowing registration of a word mark like SKY, irrespective of any distinctiveness acquired through use, contributes greatly to the twin problems of depletion and foreclosure - the processes which make it increasingly difficult to coin a new trade mark. Although the word SKY is present in the word SKYPE (and it is not actually word trade marks anyway - there is some figurative content, which didn't help the applicant) surely that added bit at the end makes a difference, and is unlikely to be lost in aural use, short of the most extreme glottal stop ever. So I am not convinced that there is a likelihood of confusion, even before considering how well-known the trade marks are: and the better-known, the less likely members of the public are to become confused. At least, that's how I think it should be.
Since posting this, I have done an interview with the BBC World Service (using, of course, Skype). Preparing for that caused me to dig a little more deeply into the case, which made me realise that the applications were filed in 2005 and the oppositions in 2006, at which time Skype (first release August 2003) would have been much less well-known than it is now. Sky, on the other hand, was already well-known by then (having been founded in 1990). That suggests to me that there would still be little chance of confusion arising from any similarity between the names, given that people knew Sky and would notice that Skype was different; but also that the market for VOIP back then was much much smaller than now (indeed, I suppose that Skype created the market) and people who might be interested in obtaining services from Skype would be switched-on types who would understand that it was nothing to do with Mr Murdoch's empire. So it doesn't alter my view of the likelihood, or lack thereof, of confusion: a well-known trade mark should receive less protection because it is less vulnerable to confusion.
Because there were three Skype trade marks, there are three reported appeals, though the judgments might involve a lot of copying and pasting. Here are links to the BAILII reports: Skype v OHMI - Sky and Sky IP International (SKYPE) (Judgment) [2015] EUECJ T-184/13 (05 May 2015), Skype v OHMI - Sky and Sky IP International (SKYPE) (Judgment) [2015] EUECJ T-183/13 (05 May 2015), and Skype v OHMI - Sky and Sky IP International (skype) (Judgment) [2015] EUECJ T-423/12 (05 May 2015).
It is an interesting contest between two weak but fairly well-known (not necessarily in the Article 6bis sense) trade marks. Allowing registration of a word mark like SKY, irrespective of any distinctiveness acquired through use, contributes greatly to the twin problems of depletion and foreclosure - the processes which make it increasingly difficult to coin a new trade mark. Although the word SKY is present in the word SKYPE (and it is not actually word trade marks anyway - there is some figurative content, which didn't help the applicant) surely that added bit at the end makes a difference, and is unlikely to be lost in aural use, short of the most extreme glottal stop ever. So I am not convinced that there is a likelihood of confusion, even before considering how well-known the trade marks are: and the better-known, the less likely members of the public are to become confused. At least, that's how I think it should be.
Since posting this, I have done an interview with the BBC World Service (using, of course, Skype). Preparing for that caused me to dig a little more deeply into the case, which made me realise that the applications were filed in 2005 and the oppositions in 2006, at which time Skype (first release August 2003) would have been much less well-known than it is now. Sky, on the other hand, was already well-known by then (having been founded in 1990). That suggests to me that there would still be little chance of confusion arising from any similarity between the names, given that people knew Sky and would notice that Skype was different; but also that the market for VOIP back then was much much smaller than now (indeed, I suppose that Skype created the market) and people who might be interested in obtaining services from Skype would be switched-on types who would understand that it was nothing to do with Mr Murdoch's empire. So it doesn't alter my view of the likelihood, or lack thereof, of confusion: a well-known trade mark should receive less protection because it is less vulnerable to confusion.
Because there were three Skype trade marks, there are three reported appeals, though the judgments might involve a lot of copying and pasting. Here are links to the BAILII reports: Skype v OHMI - Sky and Sky IP International (SKYPE) (Judgment) [2015] EUECJ T-184/13 (05 May 2015), Skype v OHMI - Sky and Sky IP International (SKYPE) (Judgment) [2015] EUECJ T-183/13 (05 May 2015), and Skype v OHMI - Sky and Sky IP International (skype) (Judgment) [2015] EUECJ T-423/12 (05 May 2015).
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