Swatch Group has filed a complaint, with the US legal authorities, against Samsung and is looking for compensation reaching over 100 million USD from the technology giant. The case puts focus on downloadable watch faces for Samsung’s smartwatches, said watch faces are available in the Galaxy store for download. This does not concern the standard watch faces by Samsung.
The magnitude of the case (Case 1:19-cv-01708-PAE) can be easily observed when looking at the parties involved:
MONTRES BREGUET S.A., BLANCPAIN S.A., GLASHÜTTER UHRENBETRIEB GmbH, MONTRES JAQUET DROZ S.A., OMEGA S.A., COMPAGNIE DES MONTRES LONGINES, FRANCILLON S.A., TISSOT S.A., MIDO S.A., HAMILTON INTERNATIONAL S.A. and SWATCH S.A., Plaintiffs, vs. SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO. LTD., and SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS AMERICA, INC.
Note that the filing is nearly 70 pages long, so I’ve selected a few of the essential bits for you:
“This action arises from Defendants’ continuing violation of the Swatch Group Companies’ invaluable federally-registered trademarks relating to high-quality, Swiss-made watches that the Swatch Group Companies sell to consumers in the United States and worldwide […]”
“One of the decisive features of the Samsung Smartwatches is the fact that the end user can customize the appearance of the user’s watch, by choosing from a catalog of downloadable watch faces offered by Defendants through the Samsung Galaxy Apps Store, an online app store dedicated for devices manufactured by Samsung and its affiliated companies.”
“Defendants offer numerous watch faces that bear identical (or virtually identical) marks to the Trademarks. This unabashed copying of the Trademarks can have only one purpose to trade off the fame, reputation, and goodwill of the Swatch Group Companies’ products and marks built painstakingly over decades. As a result of Defendants’ actions, consumers and the general public are deceived into believing that the Samsung Smartwatches are actually products of the Swatch Group Companies or are endorsed by, sponsored by, or affiliated with the Swatch Group Companies.”
For your viewing, hereunder a few snippits of the images provided by Swatch Group in the filing, hard to argue that there are more than a few similarities:
