Swatch now joins Apple and a legion of other tech companies in lawsuits against Samsung for copying their technology and designs. However, for once, it’s not Samsung that did the copying. Instead, they’re merely hosting the infringing designs. The Swatch Group, made up of Swatch, Omega, Longines, Tissot, and Breguet watch brands, is suing Samsung for third party watchfaces on Samsung’s Galaxy Store for download and use on Samsung’s Gear watches. Swatch reached out to Samsung in December, asking them to remove the infringing watch faces, admit fault, and prevent this from happening again.
They did not fully comply.
Now Samsung’s in hot water for refusing to comply with Swatch’s trademark complaint.
Swatch’s Argument
Swatch’s complaint goes unanswered, and Samsung hasn’t commented on the matter. Samsung originally removed the watch faces, but refused to admit fault and refused to ensure infringing faces are not re-uploaded. They were. As such, and after roughly three months of waiting for a real response, Swatch is suing Samsung for $100 million in damages, as well as the removal of the infringing watch faces from Samsung’s store and better prevention in the future.
This is likely why we don’t yet have third party watchfaces on the Apple Watch.
If Swatch wins their case, Samsung will likely have to institute a review process for watch faces, looking for obvious signs of copyright infringement. They’ll also have to comply with future requests to remove infringing designs. It’s not a large ask, and one that nearly every website that accepts third party contributor content complies with. Samsung, however, has a more lax attitude on copying, as their early smartphone designs, vacuums, and TV designs have shown.
Sources:
- Shannon Liao, The Verge
- John Revill, Heekyong Yang, David Evans, Jason Neely, Reuters
- Ryan Whitwam, Android Police