Sky v SkyKick reaches UK Supreme Court endgame

The UK Supreme Court will hear Sky v SkyKick today, June 28, a case that could have major implications for trademark filing strategies.

The appeal, which will be heard over two days, is the culmination of a long-running dispute that has produced a slew of judgments in the courts of England and Wales and one at the Court of Justice of the EU.

Whatever the outcome, the Supreme Court’s ruling could have significant implications on what constitutes a bad faith trademark filing.

The dispute began when media company Sky sued cloud computing platform SkyKick for trademark infringement.

In 2020, the England and Wales High Court found that SkyKick had infringed Sky’s trademarks but added that some of Sky’s marks were also too broad and had been filed in bad faith.

The High Court said Sky hadn’t intended to use the marks for some of the goods and services they covered.

In particular, Mr Justice Richard Arnold (then a High Court judge and now a member of the Court of Appeal) found that marks covering ‘computer software’ were too broad.

But at the Court of Appeal, Lord Justice Christopher Floyd found that Sky had a substantial current and future expectation of trade in the relevant goods and services.

Managing IP will report from the hearing this week.