Europe is a rather hostile market for large technology companies (see Google and Microsoft). The latter had to pay a fairly large fine for 2011 for antitrust violations. But the problems do not seem to be over.
According to the BBC, the General Court of the European Union has ruled that Microsoft cannot register as a trademark signal the Skype name in Europe because the name is very similar to "Sky", which today belongs to the Sky Broadcasting group, also known as BSkyB or Sky News Corporation.
Basically, the judge said Micronsoft's Skype name could be confused with Sky, so the trademark can not be registered.
This does not mean that Microsoft will have to renamed Skype directly, but it may have to do so within the next few months to avoid paying a fee to the UK company holding the rights to Sky.
Microsoft has already voiced its intention to appeal the court decision and has stated that it will not re-name Skype until the final decision of the appeal is announced.
"We are sure there is confusion between these two trademarks and services and we will appeal. This decision does not require us to change the names of our products in any way," said a company representative.
Sky, on the other hand, says it is a fair decision, because the similarities between the two names might actually confuse its European customers ....
Let us remind you that this is not the first time that Microsoft loses a litigation from the same company as it has been forced to renaming SkyDrive to OneDrive because its name was similar to Sky.
To see this time, will I change my name to Skype?
