Design copied?

If it was me, I'd probably drop him an e-mail stating that you keep a regular eye on his site and noticed that he had indeed used your design, referencing your e-mail and his reply.

Leave it quite vague as your intentions and see if you get any kind of response - you never know, he might have lost your e-mail details and had every intention of thanking you or sending you a freebie!
 
'Harry said:
End of the day you gave it to them. Unless it's copyright material there is nothing you can do about it. Chalk it up to experience and move on.
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You clearly have no idea how copyright law works. It is automatic at the point of creation. Patenting is something entirely different and must be applied for.
 
StevieP said:
If it was me, I'd probably drop him an e-mail stating that you keep a regular eye on his site and noticed that he had indeed used your design, referencing your e-mail and his reply.

Leave it quite vague as your intentions and see if you get any kind of response - you never know, he might have lost your e-mail details and had every intention of thanking you or sending you a freebie!
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Do this. Assume it's an honest move but be prepared to take action. You've got far more right to pursue this than the likes of Apple etc. It's an awesome design/concept and you deserve to reap the benefit of it
 
Yeah, I'm pretty sure there's nothing doing this even if they did use your concept.

Maybe if you'd copyrighted the design before showing it to them?

Saying that, an email to them and the hope of a free watch is definitely in order :)

EDIT: As BunnyKillBot points out copyright is implied at the point of creation... hummmmmmmmmm
 
If you want to pursue this then I strongly advise speaking to a lawyer before doing anything else (like contacting him) as something you say could prejudice any claim.
 
That looks way too much like an iPod Nano in a wrist strap to be honest. I would keep quiet and let them get iSued by Apple instead of you.
 
You don't need to do anything to "copyright" your design. All designs, photographs, art work are copyrighted the moment they are created.

I think people are confusing copyright with patent.

It is hard to say they copy your design. Designs are often copied from one to another. Like cars sold all have 4 wheels, set of headlights, windows and 4 seats with engine in the front (for the most part).

Even in watches, there are thousands with 3 hands, 12 numbers (1-12), round face with the date window on the 3 o'clock position.
 
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Are there any other watches that use this method of indicating hours/minutes/seconds that were already available?
 
The Zegarek Nixon Newton watch also seems functionally the same as your design, although not sure how long it's been out.

3496kvp.jpg


...would seem the idea of patenting rotating disks as a feature have long gone I'm afraid.
 
Not that I'm aware of but of course that doesn't mean there aren't. I didn't copy the concept if that's what you mean, I just thought of it randomly.

I think my idea of changing the order of the H/M/S to represent an orbit is perhaps more original and copied than the actual basic aesthetics. The one above for example, based on the size of the dots I assume still has minutes on the outer ring.
 
Sounds like they took your IDEA and made their own DESIGN.

You can't patent an idea, only the execution. Not sure how close the court sees the difference here but I do prefer yours.
 
Russinating said:
Anyway, what do you guys think?

My design two years ago, sent to them (and received acknowledgement):

jmGdp.jpg.png


Their watch, just released, called 'Satellite' (mrjoneswatches.com/satellite):

zXlo9.jpg
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I can't comment on the legal side of things, what I will say though is that your watch face is significantly nicer than theirs :)
 
Well folks, he's replied already having only emailed him about 10 minutes ago! I obviously stirred something but I'm not one to go around suing people anyway, and his response seems genuine, believable and I doubt my design is both unique enough and similar enough to warrant any actual legal anyway.

His reply for those interested:

Hi Russell,

Thanks for your email, I confess I had forgotten about your design (at least in my conscious mind - perhaps somewhere it had lodged in the subconscious!)

Really with Satellite my starting point was to try and make a better dawn west dusk east. On dwde the colours are supposed to represent the changing colour of the light over the day, however as it uses a 12 hour mechanism this is somewhat unsatisfactory (the hand makes two revolutions per day).

We mocked up a 24 hour dwde, but it was simply too difficult to read the time, so I thought to combine it with Cyclops. This was still hard to read (a single handed 24 hour Cyclops I mean), so we added in the minute hand.

So by a circuitous route we reached a similar point to your design!

As a gesture of goodwill for the (subconscious) inspiration we'd be happy to offer you our "friends & family" discount of 20% on any of our products - just let me know if you'd like to order anything and we can send you a discount code.

Kind regards

Crispin
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No free watch but 20% is something :p.
 
That's not a bad offer tbh. Though I'd push him to make yours now he already has something similar as it's clearly better :P

Well done fella, you can feel proud of that imo :)
 
Russinating said:
Well folks, he's replied already having only emailed him about 10 minutes ago! I obviously stirred something but I'm not one to go around suing people anyway, and his response seems genuine, believable and I doubt my design is both unique enough and similar enough to warrant any actual legal anyway.

His reply for those interested:



No free watch but 20% is something :p.
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Still means you give them 80% of your money to buy your watch. I wouldn't accept that.
 
Talk to a lawyer.

edit: After seeing the reply, maybe not. That's the outline of an argument that the design came from existing products and not from your sketch.
 
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