High Court Rules UK's YouView TV Service May Have To Change its Name

[engine]

For such a large company, I'm surprised it hadn't done the due diligence on the registered trademarks to avoid such problems.

Internet TV service YouView may have to change its name after the High Court ruled it had infringed another company's trademark.

Telecoms firm Total registered the name YourView for one of its online portal products in 2006.

A judge ruled that YouView was "confusingly similar" to YourView.

Total said it would now apply for an injunction to prevent further use of the YouView brand. YouView said it planned to appeal.

In a statement, YouView said: "We maintain there is no confusion between our consumer-facing TV service, YouView, and the business-to-business billing platform, Yourview, provided by Total Ltd."High Court Rules UK's YouView TV Service May Have To Change its Name [bbc.co.uk]

[lucy24]

We maintain there is no confusion between our consumer-facing TV service, YouView, and the business-to-business billing platform, Yourview, provided by Total Ltd.

This strikes me as perfectly reasonable. If YourView is b2b, how would YouView users even know it exists? Is YourView worried that their user base-- whether existing or potential-- will think they've diversified, with ensuing loss of quality?

The essence of a trademark is that it applies to similar areas of business. For comparison purposes, look up some well-known name like "zipper". There are hundreds of 'em.

Raise your hand if you saw the subject header and thought the stink had been raised by YouTube on grounds of vaguely similar sound.

[engine]

If that's the case, perhaps you should have represented them in the High Court. Clearly, their team didn't explain that so that the Judge understood. ;)