NEWSPAPER BARON Rupert Murdoch has been battling online telecoms firm Skype for over five years, according to new documents revealed. Murdoch is claiming trademark infringement and is attempting to prevent the firm from using the first three letters of its name Sky as they spell Sky – the TV firm which is 39% owned by the Australian.

Sky said that people may assume that Skype is part of Sky – which is not the case.

“Sky is involved in a long-running dispute with Skype in relation to several trade mark applications filed by Skype, including, but not limited to, television-related goods and services,” the spokesman said. “The key contention in the dispute is that the brands ‘Sky’ and ‘Skype’ will be considered confusingly similar by members of the public,” a spokesman for Sky said.

The firm said that its concerns were backed up by consumer research.

Skype have said it will fight the battle all the way to the European Court of Justice. The information has only just come out following an announcement that Skype is seeking to be listed as a public company in the US.

Skype was sold to Ebay for $2.6bn in 2005 but Ebay sold it for only $1.9bn last year.