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Luxury watch brands are going after imitation smartwatch faces

By Kenny Yeo - on 26 Nov 2014, 10:07am

Luxury watch brands are going after imitation smartwatch faces

Source: Macrumors

One cool thing about smartwatches is their customizable dials. And thanks to a large community of designers and programmers, there are no shortage of customized watch faces out there on the Internet for users to download.

However, a good number of these customized watch faces are in fact imitation of dials of watches from luxury watch brands. This has not gone unnoticed by watch companies, especially those that operate in the high-end such as Omega, Cartier, IWC and Panerai. These companies, and many more, have been reported to be issuing cease-and-desist notices to websites and individuals, citing trademark, design and copy right violations and warning them of legal action if the customized faces are not taken off from their sites. Some of these sites have been given as little as 24 hours to comply.

Luke, the owner of FaceRepo, one of the sites being targeted by these brands said, "Although some of the replica faces we’ve received take downs for are very cool looking and represent significant artistic talent on the part of the designer, we believe that owners of copyrights or trademarks have the right to defend their brand. If a copyright or trademark owner contacts us, we will promptly remove infringing material. To date, all requests for removal of infringing material have been satisfied within a matter of hours."

Interestingly, this reminds us of the time when the Swiss Federal Railway serviced accused Apple of copying the design of their iconic railway clocks, which were designed by Mondaine. Apple later paid US$21 million to settle the case and for rights to the clock design.

Source: Macrumors

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