Since the launch of the first Apple Watch, in which Apple wanted to enter the world of watchmaking, although without having anything to do with traditional watches, the Swiss firm Swatch has always criticized the incursion of both Apple and other companies in this sector. In the end, after so much criticism, too was encouraged to launch a smart watch, although with very little success.
In April of last year, Apple filed a lawsuit against watchmaker Swatch, to be coined and a slogan similar to the one known to all Think different from Apple. The company had used the slogan Tick Different for promote its new generation of watches with NFC technology.
According to Apple, it paraphrases one of the best-known slogans in the advertising world, and that coincidentally belongs to Apple. A year later, the Swiss court where the lawsuit was filed, has removed the reason. According to the Swiss court, it is Apple's slogan Think different it was not well known enough in Switzerland to guarantee its intellectual protection. Furthermore, according to the Swiss Federal Administrative Court, it states that Apple has not produced documents to sufficiently support its case.
It draws the attention of the court's decision since Apple used this slogan around the world during the years 1997 to 2002. The slogan Thick Different He first appeared in an American television ad titled Crazy Ones featuring 17 people who challenged the status quo to change the world.
Albert Einstein, Bob Dylan, Martin Luther King Jr, Richard Branson, John Lennon (with Yoko Ono), Buckminster Fuller, Thomas Edison, Muhammad Ali, Ted Turner, Maria Callas, Mohandas Gandhi, Amelia Earhart, Alfred Hitchcock, Martha Graham, Jim Henson, Frank Lloyd Wright and Pablo Picasso are some of the celebrities who appeared in the ad, plus Mahatma Gandhi, Richard Feynman, and Frank Capra.
In this type of complaint, the court relies on the knowledge of the population. In this case, 50% of the Swiss population would have to associate the slogan Tick Different of Swatch with the Think different from Apple. Then, the Cupertino-based company would have won the lawsuit.
Previously, both companies have also faced each other in a similar case, this time with registration by the Swiss company of One More Thing, another case that Apple also lost.
Currently, if we pay attention to the figures of the analysts, Apple sells more watches than the entire watch industry. Traditional brands do not seem to have found the way to compete with smartwatches that have become an increasingly common device on users' wrists.