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Apple Finally Pays For Some Intellectual Property

This article is more than 10 years old.

As we know very well Apple has a ferocious reputation for defending its own intellectual property in court. Up to and including the idea of a rectangle with rounded corners. It also has something of a reputation for not agreeing to pay for the intellectual property of others. This might be an unfair reputation but it is still there.

So, good to see that Apple has agreed to pay the Swiss Railways for the inclusion of their iconic clock design in the latest OS release from Apple.

SBB has confirmed a licensing deal with Apple that gives the iPad builder rights to use the iconic timepiece in its mobile OS.

The full announcement is here:

Für die Nutzung der Bahnhofsuhr der SBB auf Geräten wie iPad und iPhone haben sich die Schweizerischen Bundesbahnen SBB und Apple geeinigt und eine Lizenzvereinbarung abgeschlossen.

For those without any German it says that Apple and SBB have come to an agreement about the use of the design. There is more importance to the agreement than just the protection of a trademark:

The clock face, which uses a red second hand resembling a railway signal on a monochrome background, was designed for the SBB in 1944 by engineer and designer Hans Hilfiker while the rest of Europe was focusing on other matters. SBB owns the rights to the design, which it says is "a symbol of innovation and reliability is an important identifying feature of the SBB and represents Switzerland."

SBB does license the design to a watch maker and receives an income from that license. Apple using that design without paying a fee is clearly trying to use for free what someone else is already paying for. Thus it's been a pretty much open and shut case since the similarity in designs was first noted.

A small note to Apple designers though. We do indeed want you to use the best designs possible. And it's entirely possible that others will have created such that you wish to include into your devices. However, the trick is to ask them, negotiate with them, gain a license from them, before you release the product, not afterwards. Otherwise people might think you're acting a bit like Samsung or something.