Filed under: iPhone, App Store, iPod touch
Cartier kerfuffle bags bogus bangles
French jeweler / watchmaker Cartier provided some unexpected humor over the long Memorial Day weekend after the company filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against Apple regarding two iPhone apps. The lawsuit and the quick response by Apple were covered by the Wall Street Journal in several posts and noted briefly in our weekend news roundup. A small iPhone development shop, Digitopolis Game Studio, had created two apps -- Fake Watch and Fake Watch Gold Edition -- that showed the time on a choice of high-end timepieces. Among the "watches" were images of Cartier's luxury "Tank" watch. Although the free Fake Watch app had first appeared in January of 2009, Cartier apparently didn't notice until Friday, when lawyers representing the company filed suit against Apple for allowing the apps to be sold in the App Store.
Apple's response was quick; they pulled the apps from the U.S. App Store almost immediately. Cartier responded late Friday by withdrawing their lawsuit, stating that their "concerns had been addressed".
What do you think? Did Cartier have a valid concern that their trademark was being infringed upon or do you think they ought to spend more time chasing down the guys selling Cartier knockoffs in Times Square? Leave your comments below.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Andrew Hammond said 6:06PM on 5-25-2009
If anything it was advertising! Poor choice on their part!
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James Donevan said 6:24PM on 5-25-2009
Trademark law requires any trademark owner to prevent any known unauthorised use of its trademarks. Failure to so can be construed as lack of diligence and result in loss of trademark rights.
This wasn't a case of whether Cartier 'ought to spend more time chasing down the guys selling Cartier knockoffs', the company was simply meeting the requirements of basic trademark law.
Do you really think these large corporations want to spend their time chasing little guys like this? No... they do it to stop the next guy from putting heir trademark are his basement knock-offs and finding they have no recourse because they didn't fully protect their trademark. You should have enough business smarts Steve to know better.
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Chris B. said 6:56PM on 5-25-2009
Seems silly at first, but if the app copied Cartier's design, it could be infringement. Good idea for a cute app. Just redesign it. Wish I could see it.
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Perspective said 6:43PM on 5-25-2009
James Donevan:
Despite your basic understanding of Trademark Law you seem to lack proficiency in good-old reading comprehension. The poster never said that Cartier "ought to spend more time chasing down the guys selling Cartier knockoffs," but rather posed a question that mentioned that as a possibility. That's what that little hook with the dot at the end of the sentence means; it was a question, not a declaration. Cheers.
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Jim In Holland said 3:43AM on 5-26-2009
Perspective seems to like to flaunt some innate knowledge that only he possesses. James Donevan correctly addressed the scope of actual incident, and not the seemingly petty nature of the incident in the article (if you can call it such). Perspective might do well to actually get some - the article asks if these motions were a "valid concern"; clearly, to maintain copyright they were, even if the author and Perspective chose to focus on the side issue.
CVBruce said 6:51PM on 5-25-2009
Actually I think they did the right thing, but trademark holders like Cartier should realize that this is good advertising, and offer to license the trademark, with the necessary restrictions, for a very nominal fee.
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AJ Langhorn said 6:53PM on 5-25-2009
You tell him, Perspective! A little pragmatism goes a long way...
TUAW, can you get the comments box sorted so it appears nicer on the iPhone? Cheers, thx.
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gib said 7:52PM on 5-25-2009
"TUAW, can you get the comments box sorted so it appears nicer on the iPhone? Cheers, thx."
Completely off topic, but I fully agree! And what about fixing the issue in which the iphone is taken to i.tuaw.com, like it or not! I want the full site, thank you very much.
djfred said 8:47AM on 5-26-2009
"A little pragmatism goes a long way"
Most of the time it does, but in Trademark law not so much. Unless you really believe that losing all rights to intellectual property is on par with wanting to be a good sport in the eyes of TUAW readers.
Cartier had no recourse but to file suit because that's what the law requires. End of story.
alansky said 7:29PM on 5-25-2009
Now *this* is a headline you can really sink your teeth into!
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joem said 9:16PM on 5-25-2009
Indeed. This headline gave me a headache!
frank.lowney said 9:40PM on 5-25-2009
This is only going to make the poor smucks that do Apple's App Store vetting be even more punctilious. They are already leaning toward rejection as the safest, for them, option.
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Tarlbot said 8:42PM on 5-25-2009
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/05/luxury-vs-premium.html
Cartier is a Luxury brand - even though this App is simple, and funny - it still makes Cartier attainable, and thus dilutes the value of the scarce product. Plus they need to defend their trademark.
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chronosafe said 10:07PM on 5-25-2009
Cartier also nets from free press for their brand. Good work.
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rick said 12:57AM on 5-26-2009
Now that there's no more Lincoln Town Car Cartier Edition, what's a fading luxury brand to do?
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jonbruck said 8:55AM on 5-26-2009
I'd like to find the likely Cartier customer who was going to buy, but decided not to because they got this app instead.
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Robert Jordan said 8:58AM on 5-26-2009
I believe the decision may be poor from Cartier. This is more of a marketing choice rather than a legal one.
At the core, the app may infringe copyrights (name brand and design), however, the customer isn't actually benefiting from the actual product.
That is, the customer is not getting to a. Wear and reflect a watch nor piece of jewelry b. benefiting from the purposed practical and emotional benefits of owning the product.
Is there a difference with having a game app with sports cars from luxury brands riding in a racetrack or street? If the car's functionality in the app is apparently different from real life, yes sue and take it down. If not, it makes your product more aspirational, which is the intrinsic value of luxury.
What they should have done is supervise the app over approval, both in design and functionality.
If something, there is an iphone app for Swiss Army watches which shows you the range of products and benefits and I believe there is one for Zippo lighters.
They are actually marketing tools and pretty good ones. Are we to believe the app is actually buying someone a luxury watch, piece of jewerly or a niche ligther? Or that they actually can light a cigar or wear a watch over the fictional image of the product?
In some subways, top handles were tapered with IWC Big Pilot watches, so when you embraced your hand you would get a glimpse of the watch case and design.
Again, it is a choice of philosophy more than anything. A weak one in my humble opinion.
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Jonathan Baldwin said 9:10AM on 5-26-2009
In the UK, and elsewhere I believe, Apple's action might be worth challenging by the app designers. You are allowed to use someone else's design under the "fair comment" provision, or for use of satire etc.
This is the provision that allows comedians to tell jokes about religion without being tried for a hate crime (there was a big debate about this recently, with Rowan Atkinson taking a lead).
So if the app developer were to say that the app was an ironic piece that hinged upon the market for fakes and knock-offs, I think it would have a good chance of standing up in court. Trademark and copyright law doesn't infringe on freedom of speech or comment. In the UK and EU that's enshrined in law, in the US it's a constitutional issue.
Note however this doesn't allow general copying and a weak claim that it is "ironic".
Also, I'm not a lawyer so don't take this as advice!
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tabaks said 10:36AM on 5-26-2009
Who cares?
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MSM said 5:14PM on 5-26-2009
Apple's response was logical, instead of going through the hassle of yet another suit, they just took the quick way out, they have nothing to lose by taking a single app (and it's "gold" version) from a library of tens of thousands of apps....
You know, that could be a lesson to other app developers to be careful when "borrowing" designs without having all the legal mumbo jumbo....
Just my two cents
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