Samsung must pay Swatch $12 million over digital watch faces
Samsung must pay Swatch Group about $11.6 million after a London High Court ruled the tech giant allowed digital copies of luxury watch faces—including Omega, Breguet, and Tissot—on its smartwatches. The Swiss conglomerate had sought $170 million; Samsung says it may appeal.
Key Takeaways
- A London High Court ordered Samsung to pay Swatch Group $11.6 million over digital watch-face copies.
- Faces from Omega, Breguet, and Tissot appeared through third-party smartwatch apps.
- Swatch originally sought $170 million; about 160,000 U.K. and E.U. downloads were cited.
- Samsung removed the apps and is weighing an appeal; a related U.S. case is pending.
The Swatch Group’s trademark fight with Samsung in London has been resolved—for now. According to Robb Report, a High Court judge ordered the South Korean tech company to pay the Swiss watch conglomerate $11.6 million for permitting smartwatches to display digital copies of faces from luxury brands such as Omega, Breguet, and Tissot.
For readers who follow high-end design and collecting culture—whether heritage dials or luxury real estate and dream homes—the ruling shows how fiercely Swiss houses guard brand prestige.
Why did the court side with Swatch?
“Use of the Swatch Group brands on Samsung’s supermarket shelves, downloadable for nothing or for little money, is to my mind very damaging,” Judge Marcus Smith said in the ruling. “The low price is demeaning of the brands the Swatch Group seek to promulgate.”
News of the suit surfaced in June, when Swatch sought $170 million in damages. Twenty-six third-party watch apps were involved; together they produced digital faces downloaded about 160,000 times in the U.K. and the E.U., according to a June 19 filing.
Tissot chief executive Sylvain Dolla said allowing luxury timepieces to appear on smartwatches “kill[s] the value of the fine Swiss watch,” per a witness statement. Reputation harm to Swatch’s luxury marques was central to the claim.
How did Samsung and Swatch respond?
“Samsung repeatedly attempted to downplay the scale and significance of the infringements by trivializing the compensation owed to the Swatch Group’s well-known brands,” a Swatch Group spokesperson told Bloomberg after this week’s ruling.
Samsung said in the lawsuit that it removed all apps that replicated the watch faces as soon as it became aware of the issue. “We are carefully considering the High Court’s judgment and will consider all possible countermeasures, including an appeal,” a spokesperson told Bloomberg. Neither company immediately responded to Robb Report’s requests for comment.
Is this the end of the Samsung–Swatch dispute?
Not entirely. A few years ago, Swatch brought a similar case over copied watch-face designs; Samsung was found liable in 2022. A comparable lawsuit is also pending in a U.S. court, filed by the same luxury brands involved in the London case.
Even if an appeal never materializes, the U.S. action means the Samsung–Swatch saga—and the fight over digital copies of heritage dials—is far from finished.