Mark Gurman of 9 to 5 Mac did a piece on Swiss watch maker Swatch stating that they will look to fight Apple on trademarking “iWatch”. Now Apple already has trademarked the term in Japan, Mexico and Turkey according to the article.
From the article:
The company is seeking to block Apple trademarks for the name “iWatch” because of its own line of watches called “ISwatch.” A representative for Swatch told Watson:
We assess the likelihood of confusion as given, the marks are confusingly similar. In all countries where the mark is registered, we go against it before.
While Swatch says it will fight the trademarks, the watch maker will not give specifics as to how it plans to do so. According to U.S. government filings, Swatch has moved in the past to block companies from registering the iWatch trademark:
This will prove to be an interesting case to see how Apple deals with the Swiss based watch maker. Will they pay them not to file an opposition ? Will they just move forward without any concession and try to get the mark through in the U.S. ?
