Brussels, 05/05/2015 (Agence Europe) - The “Skype” sign (the well-known logo surrounded by a cloud and the verbal sign Skype) cannot be registered by the company of the same name as a Community trademark for audio, video, photo and telephony products or for IT and Internet services.
In a judgment returned on Tuesday 5 May (joined cases T-423/12, T-183/13 and T-184/13), the General Court of the EU argued that there was a risk of confusion between the Skype figurative and verbal sign and the “Sky” Community verbal trademark registered by the company British Sky Broadcasting Group in 2003.
In so doing, the General Court has upheld the refusal, in 2012 and 2013, of the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market (OHIM) to grant the registrations applied for by Skype in 2004 and 2005 respectively, which were opposed by British Sky Broadcasting Group (now Sky and Sky IP International).
In its judgment, the General Court concluded that there is a visual, phonetic and conceptual similarity between Skype and Sky: the pronunciation is the same, the 'sky' element is included in the term 'Skype' and can be identified as such and the Skype logo described above is likely to increase the identification of this 'sky' element. Additionally, the General Court found that even if the term “Skype” had acquired its own significance for the identification of the telecommunication services provided by the company of the same name, it remains a generic term which is only descriptive of services of this kind. (Francesco Gariazzo)