Sky? Skype? EU Court Backs Murdoch Over Microsoft in Name Battle

In a clash of corporate titans over naming rights in a fast-changing industry, Microsoft and its Skype phone service came out on the losing side of an EU court battle on Tuesday with Rupert Murdoch's television business Sky.

Judges at the General Court of the European Union in Luxembourg upheld a complaint that the British broadcaster lodged a decade ago with the EU trademark authority in which it said the Skype name and logo risked being confused by consumers because they sounded and looked too similar to "Sky".

U.S. tech giant Microsoft, which owns the Skype service, may appeal. The court ruling upheld decisions by the trademark office in 2012 and 2013 which have prevented the Skype name being registered but have not blocked its use by the business.

Late last month, a Skype spokesperson had been quoted to say the Microsoft-owned firm was working on a India-specific version of the VoIP client to better deliver voice and video over the country's 2G and 3G networks. The Microsoft-owned company decided to develop the app after market research showed it that competitors like Viber were managing to provide better services for mobile users in the country.

Explaining how the app would be better, Filipp Seljanko said, "India's 2G and 3G network[s], as well as the mix of phones in use, pose very specific challenges for us. The new application will be much lighter than the one now available, and will require far less computation resources and memory."

Written with inputs from Reuters