Apple can't block Swatch’s 'One more thing', high court rules
Apple has lost a legal challenge levied at Swiss watchmaker Swatch to prevent it registering Steve Job’s famous phrase “one more thing” as a trademark.
The late co-founder and chairman of Apple often used to use the phrase at the end of Apple keynotes to signal the reveal of a new product. The phrase was likely a reference to TV detective Columbo, according to English High Court judge Iain Purvis, in a ruling handed down on 29 March, 2021.
The specific marks in dispute were numbers 1281231, 'Swatch one more thing', and 1281232, 'One more thing'.
Judge Pervis sided with Swatch in the dispute, deciding that the company had not “stepped over the line” in its attempt to register the mark, although acknowledged that Swatch’s intention was primarily to annoy the US tech company.
Purvis considered whether Swatches intention to annoy could constitute bad faith but ultimately decided against it.
This ruling overturned a lower hearing officer’s ruling, which ruled in Apple’s favour, claiming that Swatch had attempted to secure exclusive rights to engage in “commercial parody”, to the extent of excluding Apple’s own commercial use of the phrase.
Purvis concluded: “All in all, it seems to me that the hearing officer had no clear idea in mind as to the kind of parody which Swatch might engage in using this mark. This is not surprising in itself, since there was no evidence on the point at all.
“However, without a clear idea, it was not legitimate to conclude that Swatch's intentions had stepped over the line between the appropriate and inappropriate use of a trademark.”
Guessing intention
Swatch had avoided saying anything about the purpose of filing the ‘One more thing’ application and had refused to comment on its knowledge of its relation to Apple, said the court.
It instead provided evidence of a list of signs it had used in the past including the word “more” and gave evidence of product ranges it had made based on fictional characters, including James Bond. However, it never stated that it had any intention of “tying-up” a relation to Columbo with its trademark application, the court added.
“Apple did not know what Swatch's intentions actually were and therefore was reduced to speculation,” Purvis noted.
On-going disputes
This is part of a long-running dispute between Apple and Swatch, beginning with a 2015 lawsuit over the Apple Watch, where Apple was barred from calling its product the ‘iWatch’.
Apple then took issue with Swatch’s intention to register the trademark “Tick Different”, a reference to Apple’s own “Think Different” slogan.
While the “One more thing” phrase had sat unused since the passing of Jobs in 2011, the phrase was revived by his successor Tim Cook for the Apple Watch’s launch.
