The British television station BskyB has achieved what many brand owners can only dream of:
The lexical term “Sky” has been monopolised to such an extent that even the software giant Microsoft has now been prohibited from using this part of its name.

The cloud service “skydrive” may no longer be offered under this name in Great Britain and Europe with immediate effect. A court confirmed that confusion could be created among consumers as to the provider of this service. “This is of course a huge story for the TV station and a great help in actually being able to use a brand name that is in itself quite descriptive on an exclusive basis,” said NAMBOS managing director Markus Lindlar. “And it shows that one has to pay extreme attention to existing trademark rights when finding a name, especially for brands with such a high degree of awareness”.

Due to a legal dispute, Microsoft renamed its cloud storage service OneDrive. As part of the action, the web service and apps will be updated as well.