“Apple’s watch competitor Swatch is trying to poke Apple in the eye by trademarking ‘One More Thing,’ the saying made famous by Apple’s late CEO Steve Jobs when introducing new surprise products,” Jack Purcher reports for Patently Apple.
“The trademark was evidently approved and registered in May of this year,” Purcher reports. “The trademark showed up in Germany earlier today.”
Purcher reports, “In May, Swatch announced that it was going to introduce their first smartwatch to challenge the Apple Watch this summer and for the holiday season.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Cheeky. Wonder if Apple will oppose?
One more thing:
SEE ALSO:
Apple Watch: Swatch CEO whistles past the graveyard – March 18, 2015
Swatch co-inventor: Apple Watch will succeed and an ice age is coming for Swiss watch industry – March 10, 2015
Apple makes roadkill of deer-in-the-headlights CEOs – April 1, 2011
One More Knock-Off
Yep. Desperate and looks stupid too. lol
It’s brilliant! Dumb shit. Great PR. Free advertising. David against Goliath.
Those who can, lead, innovate and invent.
Those who can’t, knock off, ripoff and ferment.
Bad vibes will accrue to those who don’t innovate and use their own clever names and slogans.
Using Steve Jobs’ favorite ending line just fondly reminds everyone who sees it of Apple, whether they use Apple or not.
Trust me on this. Everyone who presents information studies the skills of Steve Jobs … everyone.
I would think Swatch would come up with Smatch as a takeoff on their name.
“Bad vibes will accrue to those who don’t innovate and use their own clever names and slogans.”
Perhaps. Steve Jobs stole this line from Columbo (Peter Falk).
And the writers of Columbo took it right out of the ordinary American vocabulary, which took it from British vocabulary, on and on. If it had been copyrighted, it would have been made public domain centuries ago. If it had been patented, ancient ‘prior art’ would have been found and debunked it.
Only in the oddity we call ‘trademark’ can an ancient phrase be ‘OWNed’.
Why does everybody keep bringing up copyrights?
Trademarks are entirely different from copyrights.
Copyright law is irrelevant.
Any sign, design or expression can be made into a trademark.
“Prior art” means nothing to trademarks.
That’s what Derek said, essentially. He pointed out that the phrase is very old and thus could not be copyrighted, but then called trademark law and “oddity” and explained that it does allow the ownership of an ancient phrase.
His position seems to be that he thinks trademark law can be used to do silly/unfair things. That’s not an unsupportable position to hold.
You’re right, though, about how often Internet commenters get trademark/patent/copyright law confused. Ugh.
This probably only limits Apple in that they can’t use that phrase in their marketing.
And that’s where Apple could probably successfully deploy their past actions to defend their use of the phrase, and perhaps to even have Swatch’s trademark revoked. If Swatch tried to say that Apple shouldn’t be allowed to use the phrase when marketing the Apple Watch (probably the only relevant Apple product that Swatch could say might confuse people), Apple would be able to point out they used the phrase when announcing the AppleWatch. That’s a significant commercial use, and might lead a court to decide that Swatch never should have been given the trademark in the first place.
You really didn’t care what I wrote, did you? Move along.
I would be really surprised if this trademark would actually stand up to a protest filing.
Exactly George. Anyone who doesn’t understand this is a blathering idiot.
Since one can’t really patent “trade dress” if there’s proof of that already existing, can one invalidate “one more thing,” based on its endless use prior?
It’s a trademark; not a patent. You are getting the two confused.
Fair enough, but still seems like something difficult to trademark if someone has been saying it *publicly* all along.
I believe a trademark must be unique to the entity registering it. Like: Thermos® and Kleenex®. Usually the problem is the other way around, with the trademark being expropriated by the general public.
I don’t think a word or phrase in general usage can be trademarked. Or if it can be trademarked, it will not be upheld on legal challenge.
Any Intellectual Property attorneys out there?
I do recall this issue is exactly why Intel went to Pentium®: it was unique (made-up) rather than the old number system that AMD could copy at will.
It isn’t as simple as being completely unique.
A made up word has a very high likelihood of being granted, since the applicant has an easy argument that it isn’t generic. Here, it seems like that phrase is fairly widely associated with Apple, so Swatch’s application should probably be rejected since it was clearly requested solely to confuse people. The purpose of trademark law is to help _avoid_ confusion.
Wikipedia covers this well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark#Registration
Does anybody know when that phrase was last used regarding an Apple launch?
I know Cook used it recently. I believe it was for the Apple Watch announcement.
Tim Cook used it last during the release of Apple Watch.
Tim Cook used it to introduce Apple Music.
Using it for Apple Watch was a magnificent moment; the mess that was Apple Music launch, not so much.
Oh no they di’ent.
Karma watch…
oh no i can never say ‘one more thing’ again…
Nah. And I hope Apple says ‘One More Thing’ forever. It’s a wonderful Steve Jobs-ism. The only thing we mere humans can’t do is stick this incredibly common, old phrase on a product as a name or slogan.
Is this ‘trademark’ stuff silly? Clearly, a lot of it is, but not all of it. Where it gets nuts is when corporates take ordinary, common phrases and decide that they ‘OWN’ it. Ridiculous.
Swatch lacks the cred to employ this meme effectively anyway. Best to remain quiet and let it languish and laugh while the lederhosen-wearing chocolate-eaters misuse and squander their ill gotten marketing jewel.
This was a transcription error. It should read “one last thing”…
Swatch watches.
How quaint!
Swatch received it on Germany, it wouldn’t be trade marked in English. I wonder what it sounds like in German?
As part of my job I saw the International TM this morning and reported it to MDN and initially got the credit.
http://www.wipo.int/romarin/advSearch.do?ID=0&searchString=+/MARKGR/INTREGN+contains+1261460#
This is the International Registrations database and as you can see they have applied for many countries:
822Basic registrationCH, 28.11.2014, 670087300Data relating to priority under the Paris Convention and other data relating to registration of the mark in the country of originCH, 28.11.2014, 670087832Designation(s) under the Madrid ProtocolAG – AU – BH – CO – EM – GE – IL – IN – IS – JP – KR – MX – NO – NZ – OA – OM – PH – SG – SX – TM – TN – TR – UZ 834Designation(s) under the Madrid Protocol by virtue of Article 9sexiesAL – AM – AZ – BY – CN – CU – CY – EG – IR – KG – KZ – LI – MA – MC – MD – RS – RU – TJ – UA – VN 527Indications regarding use requirementsIN – NZ – SG
Prior art…?
Lol
This so pathetic..
2019 – Oh, there’s One More Thing, due in part to competition from the Apple Watch, today Swatch announced they are declaring bankruptcy.
Swatch was salivating in advance to sue Apple for the supposed “iWatch” launch. They were knocked down when Apple Watch brand was launched instead. Now they believe could payback with this infame action.
Prior art?