Swatch bites Apple over “One more thing”

Steve Jobs was known to say at the end of his Apple presentations the phrase “ONE MORE THING” to indicate that there was a surprise product. That tradition has now continued with his successor, Tim Cook, specifically for the launch of the Apple Watch. 

So, what is the problem?

Apple sought to register the famous phrase of Jobs. However, it was not successful.

In fact, Swatch Group AG filed several “ONE MORE THING” trademarks during 2015 and 2018 that did not pleased Apple Inc, which was willing to block and invalidate the registration at any cost.

In a recent milestone decision, the London Court did not agree with the California-based tech giant. Indeed, The Londoner judge, named Judge Purvis, ruled that the tech company cannot keep the phrase to itself, following a lengthy trademark dispute with Swiss watchmaker Swatch Group AG and approving that the subject sentence is already trademarked to be used in Swatch marketing contents.

All the “ONE MORE THING” trademarks registered by SWATCH GROUP AG through WIPO database - click on the picture to enlarge.

The feud between Apple and Swatch is not new and they have been on each other throats for years now.

The dispute is part of a broader battle between the Cupertino, California-based company and Swatch: it started with other trademarks disputes including the Swiss watchmaker’s move to register “Tick Different” that evoked Apple’s acclaimed advertising campaign “Think different”, which ran between 1997 and 2002.

Not only, the feud continued over the naming of watches that goes back to the launch of Apple’s own product in 2015 when Apple was prevented from calling its version the “iWatch” because too close to the already registered “ISwatch”.

Regarding this last “ONE MORE THING” trademark case, Jobs’ successor Tim Cook revived the late Apple founder “One more thing” line in 2015 specifically for the launch of the Apple Watch. 

This mentioned expression was used when saving the blockbuster reveal for the end of a keynote presentation; Tim Cook has also used the phrase occasionally, while emphasizing that "We have great respect for these words".

During the dispute, Apple argued that Swatch, starting from 2015, sought to parody Apple when it filed and registered the phrase, with its lawyers saying the move was in “bad faith”.

“I use the word ‘parody’ there to encompass the kind of trolling behavior, the malicious bad faith use of themark,” Apple’s lawyer Jaani Riordan said, according to the ruling.

The phrase was contentious because they are associated with Apple's own marketing.

Swatch, however, argued that the use of the “One more thing” sentence is a reference to the TV detective Columbo, who used it just before he revealed the culprit. It has nothing to do with Apple, the watchmaker claims.

Eventually, Judge Purvis declared that Apple was unable to come up with examples and evidences of any potentially concerning parodies and bad faith. 

The judge agreed with the Swiss watchmaker adding that the phrase was likely originated from the 70s TV detective Columbo, played by Peter Falk, proving that no malicious intentions were intended by Swatch. 

This is the third victory that Swatch conquered towards trademarks disputes against Apple Inc. We assume that the feud is not over and more bad blood is yet to come.