How Has The Apple iWatch Created Such A Fuss?

News and rumours are one thing but when competitors start coming out with products based solely on speculation and rumours from Apple trade marking iWatch still blows my mind.  That doesn’t stop companies pre emptying to sue Apple for infringements.

A site called Watson based out of Switzerland that say switch watchmaker Swatch is considering bringing legal action against Apple to protect its trademarked term I swatch.

This is after the news that Apple reportedly worked to register a trademark for the term iWatch around the world.

Bearing in mind that Watson is a German language and the Google translation of it is a bit choppy to English reading eyes said the general message is clear Swatch thinks it could have Apple over a barrel.  The Swatch group head of corporate communications is quoted in the piece indicating that Swatch thinks the iWatch term apple is registering around the world is a bit too similar to its own ISWATCH term and that consumers would be likely to confuse the two.

Funny thing though Swatch only registered the term ISWATCH in 2008 after years of iMacs and iPods and months of iPhones flooding the planet one wonders whether they were worried about confusion at that point or they may be hoping for it or perhaps.

Watson says watch registered iswatch as both a word mark and the figurative mark.  Assuming Google translate miss the subtle difference between figurative mark and design mark that could make the consumer confusion question, well more confusing.  If Swatch registers the look of the mark swatch with a lower case i that could make it more easy to confuse with the Apple mark for iWatch with a lower case i.

Taking a trip to the Swatch site and searching for the device one finds the company listing the swatch in ALL CAPS, even the “i” that kicks off the word.

additionally if one looks at an iswatch there is no way anyone would confuse that with something designed by Apple.  None, no way..

The piece says Apple has a sort of shell company called BrightFlash working to register the iWatch trademark on its behalf in various countries.  The rumor that has been reported before in most of those countries trademark authorities have yet to make a decision, Monaco has turned up on Apple side in the equation while Iceland has come back with a preliminary ruling that apples iWatch Mark appears to confusingly similar to swatches, iswatch Mark.

Anyone case for a wager that some of the cash Apple has stashed asked can make this problem go away, assuming Apple plans to release something called iWatch