YouView faces trademark challenge
informitv’s William Cooper comments on YouView’s potential trademark challenge: “Given that the name is one of the main assets of the joint venture, it seems extraordinary that the necessary intellectual property has not been secured”…
YouView, previously codenamed Project Canvas, faces a trademark challenge if it is considered confusingly similar to YouTube. It appears that the YouView trademark has yet to be granted and is now subject to an objection. The joint venture between the BBC, ITV, Channel Four, Five, BT, TalkTalk and Arqiva has also been criticised by advertisers, who are concerned that it could become an effective cartel.
The name YouView appears to play on an association with YouTube and Freeview, the brand that is currently synonymous with digital terrestrial television in the United Kingdom. YouTube, and the associated trademarks, are owned by Google, which is launching its own connected television platform, Google TV.
A lawyer quoted in The Telegraph said the consortium was “playing a dangerous game by trading on YouTube’s brand”.
“We are not aware of any opposition from YouTube,” a YouView representative said in response. “The trademarks are not in any way confusingly similar”. That may depend how you view it.
The YouView trademark application was filed in April 2010. It appears that the trademark has yet to be granted. Investigation by informitv reveals that the Intellectual Property Office has received two notices of opposition filed on 16 September, the day the consortium officially launched the brand.
Given that the name is one of the main assets of the joint venture, in which the partners are each investing many million pounds to promote the platform, it seems extraordinary that the necessary intellectual property has not been secured.
On a Media Playground panel in June, chaired by William Cooper of informitv, Anna Bateson, the marketing director for YouTube in Europe, appeared reasonably relaxed about the possible use of the name YouView. Then again, she had only just joined YouTube from ITV, where she was director of viewer marketing.
Meanwhile, YouView has come under fire from advertisers. The advertiser trade body ISBA has called on the media regulator Ofcom to investigate the YouView consortium on the grounds that it is a “quasi monopoly”…
Read more at informitv.com
© informitv 2010. All rights reserved. Reproduced with permission.