Wow! That's quite an assumption to make in the abstract about total strangers. I can't say that no ~$300K/year earning person does not have the motivation you cite -- largely just to show off -- but to me it seems like a strange desire to satisfy using a watch, fake or not. I think that not only because most folks don't seem to notice watches much in the first place (unless they are somewhat "into" watches), but also because aside from a few very well known makes, most folks aren't even aware of the existence of sub-60K/year-production-volume watch companies such as PP, ALS, JLC, etc. (I don't tend to notice other folks' watches, but I know that most horological enthusiasts do.)
If one wants to make a gratuitous public display of one's socioeconomic position and/or something of that nature, one at least needs to do so using objects that others will recognize. Otherwise, one's peacockery is ineffectual.
For example, I tend to fairly often wear Loro Piana garments: sweaters, scarves, slacks, shirts, sport jackets, and/or outerwear. I think few people recognize Loro Piana garments, even their arguably best known garment, the Horsey Coat, but all of them are expensive. Loro Piana's garments -- at least the ones I wear -- are just no good for showing off. After all, if someone walked by you wearing the coat shown below, assuming you actually noticed the jacket to begin with, would it be apparent that they might be wearing a $2K - $7K jacket (depending on whether it's synthetic or cashmere)? But for my buying Loro Piana garments, it wouldn't be apparent to me. Even when I attend events with very well off folks, although I'm aware that they are all probably wearing/carrying very nice "stuff," I wouldn't presume they are wearing stuff that expensive, yet they may very well be.
I think fake Patek or real Patek watches, along with a great many other makes and apes of high end watches, are much the same largely because so few folks would recognize them to begin with, much less actually see clearly the name on the dial. I think watchies might notice a PP or other fancy watch, but people who are "into" watches comprise a very small segment of the population. But I suspect that
most folks upon seeing a PP or VC or something of that ilk will determine whether they think it looks nice and not and that's about it. I don't think they'll see it as a "show off" sort of thing.
Red:
Fair enough.
Blue:
I tweaked your wording above. If my tweaking misses the mark, read no further.
The law is what it is as determined by the U.S. Supreme Court (
http://www.sughrue.com/files/Publica...tradedress.htm). Given how the Court upheld the interpretation/definition of "trade dress" as stipulated in the Lanham Act, companies like Nike, Audemars Piguet, Rolex spend handsome sums (as absolute amounts, not as percentages of their profits or revenue) to defend their intellectual property rights. So to the extent that the sums spent be deemed as harmful, even tremendously so, you are correct.
Now here's the thing. As much as I am keen to be a voice defending the rights and privileges of both companies and individuals, I'm rarely if ever willing to be such a voice of support for people or entities that don't defend themselves against a given "wrong."
To understand what this means re: trade dress matters, specifically fake watches, take a look at the types of trade dress suits companies like Nike, Audemars Piguet and Rolex bring. They don't seem to often if at all bring suit against the companies and/or individuals who make fakes, products that blatantly and literally display the well recognized symbols associated with their owners -- the Nike "swoosh," the Rolex name and crown, the AP name, and so on. No. They bring suit against other large companies that make stuff that vaguely resembles a product or theme initially established by the likes of Nike, AP,
et al.
[If you don't want to read what follows, all of which is just info that supports my conclusion, you may want to skip directly to the Conclusion section. There's a reasonable chance you can correctly infer what I've provided below from the statements in my conclusion.]
Some folks may not understand what I mean, so I'll share some examples.
- Nike sued Already, LLC over the following shoe. (http://www.scotusblog.com/2012/11/ar...-mean-no-suit/)
Now you tell me, does that shoe (accused shoe) look like a Nike shoe so much that there appears to have been just cause for Nike to sue Already, LLC? Not one thing about the way that shoe looks screams "Nike" to me.
As it turns out, Nike withdrew its claim, but the cost of defending (or preparing to defend) against Nike's claim had been incurred by Already, and Nike spent money to bring the suit. Make no mistake, we're not talking small sums; the case had to go to the Supreme Court before Nike withdrew. (http://www.duetsblog.com/2013/01/art...k-enforcement/) I don't care Already caused the case to make it that far. The case should never have been brought.
Case related sidebar:
Already, LLC asserted that Nike used its size/wealth to bully them. The Court didn't accept that argument. Legally, I get why the Court didn't accept the "bullying" argument when it allowed Nike to withdraw its claim, but morally/ethically, I think Nike most definitely bullied (tried to) Already. The Court seems to have recognized substantively the same thing. (http://blog.pattishall.com/2013/01/1...-at-what-cost/)
Apple sued Samsung largely over the shape of the corners and the flatness of the screen on a Samsumg phone being similar to those elements on Apple's iPhone 3 and 3GS. Really? Apple won in part, but who won isn't point of why I mention it here. The point is that Apple brought suit over something that isn't at all an instance of a company literally using Apple's brand, yet there are literally hundreds of thousands of fake iPhones floating around, counterfeit iPhones that have the Apple logo on them, plain as day.
- Rolex: I couldn't find too many trade dress suits Rolex brought (I'm not an attorney; I may not be looking in the right places or the right way**), but I this one: http://media.lasvegassun.com/media/p.../rolex1030.pdf . In that case, Rolex sued two people who live here (https://www.google.com/maps/place/19...2dcc81!6m1!1e1) in Nevada.
I also found Rolex v. Melrose, although I have yet to find the specific details of the infringement. (https://www.internetretailer.com/201...olex-trademark) What I know, however, is that Rolex basically put a $10 million dollar company out of business by winning an $8.5 million dollar judgement (http://finance.yahoo.com/news/krisha...104400336.html). Now the thing is that Rolex
I'm not arguing that Rolex wasn't entitled to win, and it appears that unlike the Nike, Apple, and AP lawsuits I have mentioned in this thread, Rolex seems to actively go after at least some makers of counterfeit Rolexes. (I'm giving the benefit of the doubt on that because as I wrote, I don't know what the watch in question looks like. Given the nature of the Nike and Apple suits above, maybe I shouldn't be so generous???)
I came across other instances where Rolex has seemingly sought to protect, against other small defendants, its trademarks. One such case being Rolex v. Canner (http://www.leagle.com/decision/19861...%20v.%20CANNER).
I don't know about you, but it seems that Rolex, like Nike has little to no reservation using its "bully power." I'm not suggesting that Rolex haven't the legal right to pursue the claims noted above. They do for the law is what is. That said, Rolex also sued a deli, a friggin' deli in Brooklyn, NY, over trademark infringement. (http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/...icle-1.1330919)
A deli? Really? Have you ever thought Rolex makes sandwiches? Would you think they might? Heck, even if the deli's name were spelled exactly as is Rolex, I still wouldn't think the Rolex watchmaking company had a damn thing to do with the corned beef sandwiches that deli sells. Would anyone? How did Rolex even discover that deli exists? Might one of their U.S. attorneys live or visit the neighborhood and have thus thought s/he saw opportunity knocking?
Conclusion:
Okay, so I've now shown that companies like Rolex and Nike will construe just about anything they want to as a harmful infringement on their intellectual property (IP) rights. My gripe with so many of the big watch companies is that they don't seem to sue the primary makers of the majority of the fakes in the marketplace: Chinese counterfeiters. They clearly can and have the right and grounds to do so, but insofar as the quantity of fakes seems to increase each year, it's very, very hard to imagine that they actually do. What these big watch companies do instead is sue where there's a lot of money to be made from the suit rather than sue entities so as to put a meaningful dent in the quantity of fakes that are available to consumers.
I don't know about you, but if I wanted to protect my IP rights, if I truly felt that the mere existence of counterfeits is indeed harmful to me and my actual or potential customers, I would pursue getting rid of the bulk of the offending products, and stopping the dissemination of the lion's share of them into the marketplace would be the thing to do. I would do that by going after the people/entities that produce that lion's share of fakes. I would do that long before I bother suing Tommy Hilfiger (TH) or Swiss Watch International (SWI) for producing watches that don't use my company name on their dials, no matter how much their wares ostensibly resemble mine.
That those companies do sue SWI and TH first suggests to me that protecting their IP rights and stopping the "tremendous harm" of IP right infringement isn't at all what these companies are trying to do. It seems clear to me that all they are trying to do is find additional ways to make huge amounts of money. Given that's what it looks like to me, I'm quite simply not willing to defend their rights in this forum. So, from the legal POV, that's why I say fakes still don't matter.
All the best.
**Note:
That I couldn't readily find the details of some cases is part and parcel of one thing that's wrong with the legal system. It's just too damn hard for non-lawyers to access "stuff."
For reference sake, here are the TH and SWI watches over which AP sought trade dress judgements/recourse.
Thirty feet away, yes the TH looks like an RO. Six feet distant or closer, not at all. At least not to me. And what is the dead giveaway that it's not? The red, white and blue flag just below 12 o'clock. And it seems to me that anyone who knows of AP will know that flag isn't their symbol. And for nyone who doesn't know of AP, it won't matter anyway whether the watch does or doesn't look like an AP of some sort.
Here are some Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Replicas:
Here are some authentic Royal Oak Chronographs
Here are some Royal Oak Offshore models that are closer to the TH watch than is the ROC.
