“Switzerland’s Schweizerische Bundesbahnen, or Swiss Federal Railway service, has accused Apple of using their iconic clock in its Clock app for iPad without permission, according to a report in the Swiss newspaper Blick,” Jordan Golson reports for MacRumors.
“The clock, designed by Hans Hilfiker, has become an icon of both the Swiss railway and of Switzerland itself. The trademark and copyright for the clock is owned by the Swiss Federal Railways service,” Golson reports.
According to [a Tages-Anzeiger] article: SBB is the sole owner of the trademark and copyright of the railway clock. The railway company will now get in touch with Apple. The aim is a legal, as well as a financial solution. It is not right that one [Apple] simply copies the design.
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Bad form, Apple. Microsoftian cum Samungish.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Joe Architect” for the heads up.]
Yep, Apple definitely needs to write them a check today to clear this all up.
OMFG, One is analog and the other is digital.
Where is the copying?
You can’t be charged with copyright infringement if you take a picture of a famous painting.
You can too, if you make money from sales of your picture.
Clue, how much did you pay for the clock?
Clue, no aluminum, brass clockworks or paint was used in Apple’s clock.
No Pixels were used in The Swiss Railroad clock?
How is this a copy?
One is three dimensional, the other is two dimensional.
How can it be a copy?
You can make a digital painting of a 3D Chunnel going from England to France. You can even have trains coming out of either end, on time.
You still won’t infringe any patents or copyrights associated with The Chunnel.
How can it be a copy?
Is anyone going to check their iOS 6 clock and glance around looking for a Swiss train?
STFU
It depends, most things pass into the public domain after a period of time. Things like DaVinci’s paintings pre-date copyright law altogether.
The Swiss Federal Railways are a government owned corporation. Unless a special exemption was given their logos in law (and that law may or may not be recognized outside Switzerland), they’re public domain to begin with.
Add numbers and that particular clock face design was used in every school I attended when growing up. Whoop-tee.
Of course you can, you can’t even use a photo of an image if you own the original, until the IP rights expire (normally 70 years after the death of the artist.)
Actually, the Apple clock is also Analog. It has tiny springs and gears behind the screen to show the clock. When you close the Clock App, Apple brilliantly swivels the entire gear box and springs toward the back of the phone and pushes another mechanical app into the foreground.
The menus are tiny cards in a stack that slide out of the deck and position themselves onto the screen in order.
The compass is a real compass only super miniaturized, and when selected the retina display becomes a powerful magnifying glass so the tiny magnetic compass that you can barely see fills the screen.
It’s brilliant, truly brilliant.
I wouldn’t. I’d use the Samsung defense.
First I’d claim that a clock face is not patentable. Then I’d point that:
A/. The red ball on the end of the second hand is smaller on the Apple clock
B/. The five minute markers are longer than the Swiss clock
C/. The five minute markers are thinner than the Swiss clock
D/. The hour hand is shorter than the Swiss clock
E/. The hour hand is thinner than the Swiss clock
F/. The minute hand is shorter than the Swiss clock
G/. The minute hand is thinner than the Swiss clock
H/. The Apple clock is devoid of any logo or emblems
and finally,
I/. The Apple clock does not have a metal surround bezel
You’re missing the main difference:
The hands are in totally different positions !
🙂
They could sue twice a day though for the next 70 years.
Additionally, the Apple clock does not have the stop of the seconds hand at the full minute that is the most unique feature of the Swiss railway clock.
Opps Sorry! Here’s a million dollars. Anything else?
This not quite microsoftian and samsungish, because those clocks is literal topological copy — there are no little hypocritical changes that would make it “different”.
So it is just blatant incompetence of Apple’s legal/licensing/patenting department.
But yes, it is really bad and proper license should be arranged.
Agreed. The only real differences are the thickness of the second marks and the lack of a taper in the Apple hour and minute hands.
Yes, thickness differences are artefacts of reproduction, not intentional changes to make those clocks “different”; this is why “topological” term could be applied here. Still blunder; some people could/should be even fired for this.
Yawn
I like Apple’s interpretation better.
1, Rick!
The red dot? Could be functional.
The Heavy hour marks? Could be functional.
The lack of numbers? That looks like styling, but who knows, you could maybe argue it has a basis in improving function (at least in a distance-reading/railway context).
Taken all together? That’s definitely trade-dress.
The fact that they’ve successfully registered and have been actively using the trademark? Seems pretty open & shut to me.
Apple has got to pay up and/or shut it down.
Actually, the Apple clock has the 12 hour at the bottom and the 6 hour at the top. It is not their fault that we are setting the Apple clock 6 hours our of phase to make it look Swiss.
That’s our fault, not theirs
eh.
there is no federal government anywhere that has a right to a trade dress patent.
Oh, so the Swiss can patent rounded circles and straight lines, eh? 😉
Yes, I’m being sarcastic. Clearly, Apple was “inspired” by the Swiss.
All the hands are shorter – really like they are selling wall clocks
I don’t buy it. Both designs are similar in principle to the ‘stick’ face on a Rolex or hundreds of other wristwatches. Next the vatican is going to start charging royalties for Roman Numerals??
yes, my son.
Easy now… What is good for the goose is good for the gander. No different than rounded corners, black trim etc… if you get my drift.
Apple will cut them a fat cheque and it will be millions not a million and give everybody a new iPhone 5. 🙂
…and Crosses, too!
Video ads are now appearing on MDN pages? VIDEO ADS? Really?
Come on MDN. The last thing we want to do is to waste limited cellular and WiFi (landline) bandwidth viewing any ads, much less video ads. Sheesh. I’ll boycott these advertisers just to send them a message — they can’t have my bandwidth.
Why the hell didn’t Apple just contact them in the first place?
Standard, scummy industry-wide business practice.
Swiss jury assesses $1 billion dollars in damages.
Apple says NO iPhone 5’s for you!!
LOL
Just a thought
Free rail tokens for every Swiss person for a year.
Someone loved the design, showed it to the boss but didn’t say it was a copy of artwork. Apple will have to pay for this one. No lawyers just a call from Tim with a sorry and a how much you need.
Looks so generic to me that it would be tough to prove. Seen many a watches and clocks in my day that looked identical.
If you read up on this design, you’ll find that it has been licensed extensively, hence the familarity
“I don’t care what you say about me as long as you pronounce my name right.” So Apple will fix it one way or another.
This whole story is fluff. Some things do not have fluffy easy word fixes, though.
My hope is that the iPhone will help herald a higher level of education, thought and tolerance and ability to work together through cooperation, but…
I don’t see it in our government or others to date because they are acting on ideological dreams rather than human nature.
Fax machines started to spell the end of the USSR and hopefully smart phones can help in the process to make a better informed more interested populace.
OTA update 6.00001—> new clock face
suck on it Swiss fence riders
I think the Swiss should keep innovating and stop trying to litigate marketshare and acting so anti-competitive! 😉
No. Copying would be manufacturing the darn clock and then selling it.
This is true inspiration. The Swiss ought to be proud.
However, take out the red dot and everything should be ok. I’m sure Ikea is also a good source for other clock inspirations.
Hang on I have designed clock motives not unlike that for the past 30 years and have never seen the swiss version. The rounded design of second hand is common in clocks long prior to 1944 to certainly since the thirties. If a traditional clock design is going to be designed to work small almost any designer would come up with something similar, as often as not if all aspects were to be readable. That said I suspect this image was probably whizzing around the designer’s head from memory to get it quite that close but I suspect that Swiss Railways ripped most of that design from existing others work that had no sense of their own originality.
Not right to copy. But’s a bloody CLOCK! Give the Swiss a little more money to add to the cash hoards from WWII sitting below the Platz. You’d think, actually, the Swiss would like a little good publicity for a change.
Remove the red dot and it looks essentially identical to any number of other clocks and watches that I have seen over the years. Three articulated bars representing hours, minutes, and seconds along with a circle of hash marks of differing widths for the time gradations is not unique. Neither is a red second hand. But the overall combination is essentially identical to that of the Swiss clock. Apple should either change their clock graphics or pay a nominal fee and continue using it with Swiss approval.
I consider this to be a joke by Swiss who wants to poke at the legal system, and I salute them for pointing out the absurdity of current IP laws and processes.
That Swiss patent is worth 5 bucks. Send them a check and be over with it.
Face it guys, this is a blatant copy, even if an unintentional one. I’ve seen other places use that clock, for instance Canary Wharf here in London, so it’s obviously possible to license the image and I bet it’s not that expensive.
Apple should just pay them a couple of million dollars and sign the paper.
About 1 million public railway and service clocks look exactly the same in Germany. Except the seconds hand.