Luxury Watchmakers Send Notices to Websites Selling Their Smartwatch Faces

According to a report by TorrentFreak, luxury watchmakers including IWC, Panerai, Omega, Fossil, Armani, Michael Kors, Tissot, Certina, Swatch, Flik Flak, and Mondaine, are sending “cease-and-desist notices” to websites and individuals who are offering cloned faces of their watches for Android Wear and other smartwatch platforms without permission (via MacRumors).

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The source notes that the watchmakers are citing various registered trademark, design, and copyright violations. Richemont, the company behind IWC and Cartier, has given owners of the pirate watch face sites as little as twenty-four hours to remove all infringing content. Luke, the owner of FaceRepo, a popular watchface download site, said he supported the anti-piracy steps being taken.

Although some of the replica faces we’ve received take downs for are very cool looking and represent significant artistic talent on the part of the designer, we believe that owners of copyrights or trademarks have the right to defend their brand,” Luke explained. “If a copyright or trademark owner contacts us, we will promptly remove infringing material. To date, all requests for removal of infringing material have been satisfied within a matter of hours.”

Apple’s recently released WatchKit allows developers to create apps for the upcoming Apple Watch, but it does not currently support the creation of custom watch face designs.

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