SkyChoice Bell Fibe trademark challenge
With Canada's large incumbent telecom providers maintaining their stranglehold over independent Internet Service Providers, Canadians are paying the price with the highest costs for Internet in the developed world. However, certain incumbents are going the "extra mile" by not only leasing their FTTH infrastructure at "ludicrous rates" to independent ISP's, but also making it difficult for smaller providers to market their fiber optic powered Internet services.
In order to achieve this, Bell registered FIBE, the first 4 out of 5 letters of the word FIBER, as a trademark back in 2010. With fiber now a key selling point for Internet services, Bell's use of FIBE in the marketplace makes it challenging for smaller providers to use fiber when branding their services for fear of Bell taking legal action against them. In fact, this is exactly what happened with SkyChoice.
SkyChoice takes action
SkyChoice Communications is currently challenging Bell Canada's FIBE trademark in the Federal Court of Canada since 2020 (i.e., T-711-20 ) as it allegedly lacks distinctiveness with only a one letter difference between FIBE and FIBER and the latter being a common term in the telecom industry, used by providers globally when marketing their Internet services. In order to ensure a successful challenge, SkyChoice has retained the services of one of the world's largest law firms.
With most consumers associating fast and reliable Internet services with fiber optic technologies, Bell's trademark registration of the first four out of five letters of the word FIBER allegedly impedes other independent telecom providers the ability to compete in Canada, which has some of the world's highest costs for Internet services.
SkyChoice Bell Legal Fund
As we all know, mounting such a legal challenge does have substantial costs which is why we are assisting SkyChoice in their endeavour by establishing the SkyChoice Bell Legal Fund on the GoFundMe platform. Your donation will ensure that they have the necessary funding to challenge Bell's monopolization of the first four out of 5 letters of the common term FIBER in Federal Court and ultimately reduce big telecom's stranglehold in providing and marketing affordable fiber optic Internet services in Canada.