Swiss Railway: Apple's Using Its Clock Design Without Permission

An anonymous reader writes "Apple received a lot of criticism during the Apple/Samsung litigation this past Summer as folks deemed it absurd that Apple was able to patent things such as icon design and the overall form factor of a smartphone. Well as it turns out, it appears that Apple has engaged in some copying of its own in the form of the new clock icon design used in iOS 6 on the iPad- a rather ironic turn of events given that Apple railed against Samsung for copying its own iOS icons. Specifically, the clock icon in iOS 6 on the iPad is a blatant copy of a Hans Hilfiker design to which both the trademark and copyright is owned by the Swiss Federal Railways service."

Comments

Re:so i can't make a clock with no numbers?

[rjmnz]

The design is also trademarked. That's a different kettle of fish. How old is the trademarked shape of the Coke bottle?

Mod parent up.
Trademarks and trade dress expire only when you fail to defend them. The term is trademark dilution.

Put a beverage in a waisted bottle and watch CocaCola successfully sue your ass, just like they have done before. It doesn't have to be identical.
These things however require active defence. The Swiss Railway must defend their mark. If they allow this then the mark is diluted and they lose ownership.
This is not new. Just because "trade dress" is a new concept here (partly due to the inappropriate (in my view) use of the term "patent", does not make it new.

The same rules required Apple to sue to protect their design.
I wonder if Samsung actually understand the concept of "trade dress" and it's long (European) well defined legal status (in case law as opposed to statute).
I would bet that the CocaCola execs were completely happy with the Samsung Vs Apple verdict.