Swatch files a complaint against Samsung for trademark infringements

Last updated: February 27th, 2019 at 13:31 UTC+01:00

According to Reuters, Swatch Group, the famous Swiss watchmaker which owns renowned brands like Longines, Omega, Swatch, Rado, and Tissot, has filed a complaint confronting Samsung Electronics and Samsung Electronics America in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York over trademark infringements.

Swatch alleges that downloadable watch faces available for the Gear Sport, Gear S3 Classic and Frontier smartwatches "bear identical or most identical marks" to its trademarks. The Swiss company is demanding a trial and seeking more than than $100 meg in damages. The visitor says information technology initiated the legal proceedings in the United states of america since the allegedly infringed trademarks were registered there.

A known problem

Samsung smartwatch users can download thousands of lookout faces from the Galaxy Store. Barring a scattering, near of them are designed and sold by tertiary-party developers. It is not immediately clear if the watch faces nether contention are designed and published by Samsung themselves. Incidentally, we have reported in the past that many 3rd-party watches faces available in Samsung's app store blatantly re-create iconic sentry designs and yet pass the visitor's store blessing process.

"This unabashed copying of the Trademarks tin can have simply one purpose – to trade off the fame, reputation, and goodwill of the Swatch Group Companies' products and marks built painstakingly over decades," the Swatch Group said in its complaint

"This is a blatant, wilful and international violation of our trademarks by Samsung," a Swatch spokesperson told Reuters. "The affected brands are worth billions. Our claim for compensation? Triple digits in millions," the representative added further. Samsung, on the other hand, declined to comment on the complaint.

Update –The Verge has published images of the watch faces mentioned in the complaint. All these watch faces are from third-party developers. Regardless, it all the same remains that Samsung approved them for publishing in its store and takes a share of their sales proceeds.