YouView the hybrid Freeview and video on demand servicehas lost a dispute around its trademark in the high court.
Justice Floyd dismissed YouView’s appeal last Friday
The new digital television service which is chaired by Lord Alan Sugar had its appeal dismissed on the 9th November by Justice Floyd following a finding from the UK Trade Marks Registry. The finding said that the name ‘YouView’ was “confusingly similar” to an earlier trademark which was held by a Gloucestershire based telecoms company called Total Ltd who had registered the trademark ‘Your View’.
Despite the ruling, the digital television service YouView says that it has “no intention of changing its name” and the case is continuing in court.
Before the launch of the digital television service, YouView had applied to register the trade marks for the name ‘YOUVIEW’ in several forms including the lower case variant ‘youview’, to be used with goods and services offered by the digital television provider.
However the telecommunications company Total Ltd had registered the trade mark ‘YOUR VIEW’ in 2009, which is uses to market its online customer portal. Total opposed YouView’s application to the Trade Marks registry and on the 30th May the hearing officer ruled in favour of Total saying that the YouView trademark was too similar to Total’s earlier trademark.
Stuart Baikie, Total Ltd’s managing director said “Our customer base and reputation is built on a winning combination of telecommunications services combined with our unique support systems, of which YourView plays an essential part,”
“YourView enables us to deliver services that are outside the scope of our competitors and we have placed significant resource and investment into integrating all new and existing systems under the global YourView umbrella.”
“It is the root of our service evolution and development roadmap, so therefore critical to our growing business. We welcome the High Court’s judgment.”
However following the ruling a spokeswoman for YouView said that it would not be changing its name and added “This matter is complex and subject to a number of ongoing legal actions and will be settled in the courts.”
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