Luxury Watchmakers Cracking Down on 'Pirated' Smartwatch Faces

quickcalibre said:

Only 13 years experience as a vintage watch dealer and watch repairer. >_>

I've had many watches with the same dial design.

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If that's the case, why can I(and most other people who collect and deal in vintage watches) walk around an NAWCC mart room(or any other analogous show with lots of watches for sale) and know the make of a watch without even bending over to look at it?

With the type of watches I deal with, I can usually identify the maker just from things like the numerals, the minute track, and the font of the dial signature. I can spot an Illinois(for example) even when it doesn't even say Illinois on the dial(as in the case of a private label watch).

This is a skill that anyone I know who is serious about vintage/antique watches has. When you walk into a room with quite literally thousands of watches for sale, and you are likely only interested in 1% of them, you need to be able to quickly and accurately sort through them.

With metal-dialed wristwatches, it's also important as knowing what the dial should look like allows you to spot a poorly refinished dial.

Despite your years of experience, all I can say is that if you can't see a difference in dials between different brands, you probably haven't been paying very close attention to the watches you're dealing with.

Post removed by user due to users commenting on personal life, come here to talk about apple, not my business or real life.

quickcalibre said:

Because case, dial and hands can make interesting combinations, this is dial talk only and I've already posted a variety of pictures of dials with the same standard design and noted that vintage dials were made by Stern and Singer and NOT the watch companies, which explains the reason in similarity, and have no more to prove.

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Actually, the laundry list of pictures you posted really only proves my point.

Take the first three you posted-a Longines, a Rolex, and an IWC. Yes, all are round Arabic numeral dials, but all have different hour markers, different minute markers, and use a distinctly different font for the signature. The location of the logo is a huge difference also-the 12:00 placement is common on Rolex, whereas right under the signature is usual on almost every Longines.

This kind of stuff is a big part of the brand identity of the watch, and what I suspect this is whole topic is dealing with.

As I said, if you can't see the differences in the dials from different makes, you're not at your watches very closely.

Post removed by user due to users commenting on personal life, come here to talk about apple, not my business or real life.

Tim0 said:

Precisely. That was pure money grab

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No it wasn't. They were protecting their intellectual property.

quickcalibre said:

And your grasp of the english language is poor at best.

Or is it your delusional mind playing tricks?

I never said dials are exactly identical. Would you like to me to tell you the definition of the word standard? Which I used. Or can you look this up in the dictionary yourself?

Also please stop telling me how I examine watches in real life, you know nothing about me or my watch dealings.

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The confusion is caused because your original post "most high end watch faces are standard and used among many brands." was pretty pointless in the context of the original article. You have clarified this statement by defining "standard" and that the majority of watch faces are round with markings around the circumference. Maybe you know something the Apple lawyers didn't. Maybe the Apple lawyers didn't think of this argument. Maybe they did. Anyway, they lost to the tune of $21m by copying a "standard" watch dial. The fact the dial in question is standard didn't seem to do Apple a lot of good. Why? Because being "standard" doesn't matter. The details matter. Typeface, fonts, trade marks etc.

Many of these digital dials are in fact exact replicas of the real dials, including manufacturers trade marks. This seems to be the issue. In the illustration used for this article, I can see Casio and Gucci trade marks and replica, digital faces/dials. I haven't looked into any more of these dials as it doesn't interest me, but I am sure there are other manufacturers represented also.

Attonine said:

The confusion is caused because your original post "most high end watch faces are standard and used among many brands." was pretty pointless in the context of the original article. You have clarified this statement by defining "standard" and that the majority of watch faces are round with markings around the circumference. Maybe you know something the Apple lawyers didn't. Maybe the Apple lawyers didn't think of this argument. Maybe they did. Anyway, they lost to the tune of $21m by copying a "standard" watch dial. The fact the dial in question is standard didn't seem to do Apple a lot of good. Why? Because being "standard" doesn't matter. The details matter. Typeface, fonts, trade marks etc.

Many of these digital dials are in fact exact replicas of the real dials, including manufacturers trade marks. This seems to be the issue. In the illustration used for this article, I can see Casio and Gucci trade marks and replica, digital faces/dials. I haven't looked into any more of these dials as it doesn't interest me, but I am sure there are other manufacturers represented also.

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Fair enough, I've gotten bored of this topic. So I'm removing all my posts.

C DM said:

So if people even have that for 1 year that means it's far from DOA, right?

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Thats right. Thats means it was not DOA. Will have to wait until 2016. See you there.

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Ciclismo said:

I have been doing that for over a year now. I guess I'm not "people".

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You are people, don't worry.