Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Will Have To Rename SkyDrive
SmartAboutThings writes "A month ago, Microsoft was involved in a legal battle in the United Kingdom, when the court found that there was a conflict between Microsoft's SkyDrive and a trademark owned by the British Sky Broadcasting Group (BSkyB). Back then, the UK court ruled that Microsoft was infringing the BSkyB's trademark. And now we have confirmation that Microsoft will be forced to change the SkyDrive brand name. This is quite a big branding issue for Microsoft. What are they going to call it? DriveSky? And chances are that the name change will be worldwide and not only in the United Kingdom."
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I'm seeing a bit too much anti-Microsoft bias here. If we weren't talking about Microsoft I'm pretty sure we'd all be outraged by that court's decision, especially given the reaction on Slashdot to similar cases in the past.
Where was Microsoft irresponsible here? Who in their right mind would have thought that SkyDrive infringed on British Sky Broadcasting Group? Does any company or service with "sky" in the name also infringe? What about SkyTrain? Or Delta Sky Miles?
I fail to see how Microsoft did anything wrong here.
I've done naming for companies in the past and it can be an excruciating process. I'm pretty sure a company as big as Microsoft isn't cavalier about naming. If my clients are any indication, their own lawyers are a huge pain in the ass for the internet teams to deal with. They're specifically paid to be thorough and attuned to every little risk. I can't imagine how much more difficult it will be now coming up with a new name with the heightened sensitivity to even the remotest of infringement. I certainly wouldn't want to be on that naming team.
It's not on BSkyB,
BSkyB is a shortform for British Sky Broadcasting Group PLC.
They use "Sky" in branding for all sorts of stuff, notably Sky Broadband and Sky Subscriber Services (which is their TV offering).
In that context, an internet cloud service calling itself Sky-something sounds like it's part of the Sky services, which it of course isn't. And Microsoft has no real claim on the 'Sky' brand, so they're SOL.