Apple Pays Swiss Federal Railways $21 Million For Clock Icon | Hacker News Reader

Apple Pays Swiss Federal Railways $21 Million For Clock Icon

mashable.com

It this really true? I hope this doesn't count as a useless contribution, but paying 21 million dollars for a clock design on your mobile OS seems to me like complete insanity. For this price, you could literally hire multiple competent workers to do whatever you wanted for the rest of their working lives, and still have money left over.

It would be a lot more rational to just switch to a different clock design and pocket the money. 21 million is almost just a rounding error in Apple's accounting department, but it's still a ridiculous amount of money. I can't possibly believe that giving your users this specific design and not losing face due to backpedaling is worth this much.

They didn't create the clock with the notion that it would cost this much. They used a design, whether it was copied or not from the Swiss design, and subsequently the Swiss Rail claimed infringement.

I'm curious about your insertion of "whether it was copied or not from the Swiss design" - any suggestion that this was designed independently by someone who had never seen the Swiss design is either fantasy or absurdity.

Boss: We should include a clock face that looks like that Swiss one.

Minion: Aye aye.

Doesn't mean the boss intended for it to be an exact copy, or that anybody even realized it was protected. Swiss clocks are like 900 years old, surely it's public domain by now, right?

Public domain? I swear, I feel like I'm living in some kind of bizzaro world where everything copyrighted, trademarked, patented, cursed & sanctified... How is this even a dicussion?! We debating whether shaped are worth suing over & crying designs are worth this much. Am I the only one that sees how hilariously messed up this situation is?

But the second hand has a cancerous growth at the end. The courts must protect this or nobody will create new clock designs anymore!

> 900 years old

Plus or minus, you know, an order of magnitude. The Swiss railway clock was designed in the 40s/50s.

Is it not possible that two designs can exist of a simple structure such as a clock without any interaction between the two people? Look I'm not defending Apple, I actually think it's deplorable. I'm not the jury or judge though. I haven't heard a statement from Apple as to whether or not they're sorry or have otherwise made an excuse.

You know Apple only makes excuses once they have a court order telling them to do so. And even then, they try to get away with it by making the excuse non-sincere.

_A_ clock? Maybe.

_This_ particular clock? Very very unlikely. Especially in a company such as Apple where design is so important. It's impossible that Apple were unaware of this design.

This particular clock face is a fetish object within design circles. The idea that several layers of Apple design people were unfamiliar with it is absurd. To get any more absurd, you'd have to postulate the existence of a tenured English professor at Yale who has never heard of Shakespeare.

> I haven't heard a statement from Apple as to whether or not they're sorry or have otherwise made an excuse

Part of the $21 million is to not have to say that.

That's how Apple feels about Samsung, too. Hence, it's better for them to pay $21M to the Swiss than to support the notion that such design similarities happen by coincidence.

Except that in Apple's case such blatant copying of a design would be worth at least $30 per instance.

and all Apple's designers should swear they have never been to MOMA:). From wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_railway_clock ):

"it has... included among examples of outstanding 20th-century design by both the Design Museum in London and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City"

Although to be honest that display at MoMA is a bunch of big glass cases with products in them. A lot of products. And I don't remember seeing the railway clock there, although the iPod definitely is.

I've spent about 8 weeks in Switzerland in my entire life, I'm not a design maven by any stretch (being both color blind to red and dyslexic) and even I said to myself, "hey, that looks like the clocks in train stations in Switzerland."

They knew.

Guys I get it. You can stop telling me now.

Sorry to pile on you in particular. No harm meant (so no down-vote from me or anything).

The point is that Apple is a company of designers. They know this stuff. The fact that they have been on a ruthless campaign of patent thuggery over elements of design much more subtle than this and cry continuously and loudly about how everyone is stealing their "intellectual property" makes this incident stand out in sharp relief. Sharp, hypocritical, relief.

Yeah I understand. I wasn't aware of the ubiquity of the design. My original comment was just clearing something up that wasn't related to this at all. I wish I could delete my comment as 5 different people have told me now.

As to the issue at hand I totally agree with your position.

...but they've already distributed the copied design to X people, so 21 million / X is probably a reasonable cost.

I don't know if Apple using that design is great advertising for Mondain (who make a range of nice watches) or if it has trashed the value of those watches.

I think that if I'd spent £500[1] on a watch that I wouldn't want it to be on everyone's iPads.

[1] most of the watches are much cheaper than that.

I've got a Mondaine Big Date, which was about $160. Personally, I'm quite pleased that Apple adopted the design, for the same reason I bought the watch last year: it's a beautiful, very readable design.

Yep, love my very simple Mondaine Evo. The thing's crazy readable; I can read it in the very lowest of light conditions and from steep angles too.

Agree. Still pretty upsetting news for an average stockholder. If those are Apple decisions as to how spend money, no wonder 30% stock downslide. Truly no better usage of this money?? Replacing icon with $99 design and give it out to charity, especially for a company so deattached from such actions, would bring new or sustain existing clientbase much better than this "cool" icon of a clock staying on your device's dashboard.

Replacing it wouldn't protect them from infringement lawsuits, and a 30% stock downslide because of a 0.021% outlay on their $100B cash hoard is a little too insane even for a conspiracy theory.

>Replacing it wouldn't protect them from infringement lawsuits

Why not?

Because the infringement has already happened. You don't just get to say "oops - I'll stop now" and get away free and clear. You still have to deal with the fact that you did infringe, and compensate for the damages that infringement did to the company and licencees involved.

So the choices are:

* Have a long and involved court case that you will almost certainly lose, where the press will continually poke you about the obvious and direct comparisons to the Samsung/Apple suits.

* Pay compensation/licencing fees, have the story become a non-story in a day or two, carry on using great piece of iconic design.

No brainer.

I'm sure the average share holder cares more about a rounding error of a settlement than the departure of a major executive, iPhone 5 stock levels, or the uncertainty of legal battle fought on many fronts.

$99 design! I think the major reason Apple became the Apple is because they stayed as far as possible from $99/design concept. Reading the following about the original design will give more clarity why Apple copied it one to one: "...Since then [1944] it has become a Swiss national icon,[2] included among examples of outstanding 20th-century design by both the Design Museum in London and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City". I hope Apple will pay to MOMA too, who else will support the Art:)?

"upsetting news for an average stockholder"

Apple's average stockholder is not who you think it is.

Besides, the company holds >$100B in cash and has managed it's finances exceptionally well in the last decade. I don't think any serious shareholder will bat an eyelash at this.

> paying 21 million dollars for a clock design on your mobile OS seems to me like complete insanity

Well, they're not. They're paying 21 million dollars in exchange for not getting sued for more than that.

Yeah, obviously, but why not just backpedal by pushing an update that uses a different watch design? Surely the damages from showing their users a copyrighted watch design for a month or so would be less than 21 million.

Because it's a great design and people love it ?

This is what I thought too. Isn't $21M a bargain to pay for a 70 years split test or proof of concept done by Swiss, who incidentally were the best clock designers and makers for centuries? Whatever you call it I feel like Apple is well off for this certainly intentional reference to the top notch product.

Given that willful copyright infringement can carry a fine up to $150k per instance, a mere 140 copies of the offending OS could attract a $21 million fine. Given that ~3 million iPads with the clock shipped in the first weekend it was available, the fine for those devices alone would approach half a trillion dollars. With an entire month's worth of sales out the door, the Swiss Railway could end up owning Apple several times over - if Apple suffered the maximum fine.

Of course, all of this is completely insane. And it's not like Apple's legal folks would take an existential threat lying down. Even so, it still reflects the lunatic reality of copyright law, which is something that any sane legal team will go out of its way to avoid. That being the case, $21 million represents an extraordinarily good settlement.

$150k in the united states maybe. this is a swiss design. .what's their damages on copyright?

As long as it's at least $7 the math still holds, even if they'd stopped shipping iOS6 after the first weekend.

It's also not a copyright claim, but a trademark claim. Different type of lawsuit altogether.

I doubt they'd want to win the lawsuit either.

That would posit that "mere design" is not something defensible, which would invalidate a lot of lawsuits by apple itself.

Apple makes $21 million (in profit, not revenue) every 3 hours. It makes sense for them to make this go away to avoid damage to their brand more than anything. Also, considering how litigious Apple has been lately as an opportunity cost of the use of their legal team fighting this sort of thing in court is probably not a good idea.

More so, the money they would pay to the Swiss Federal Railway will come out of a heaped up mound of money that Apple would have trouble bringing back to the US anyway (due to tax implications). Overall this is a fairly sane move on Apple's part. Get it out of the way, and move on.

They could add a snarky comment to it as well saying only some countries thought the watch design was the same, and Apple's watch was cooler anyway.

Well, they're paying 21 million dollars to:

1) Continue using the clock. If they lost the lawsuit, they would have to stop.

2) Not admit they are wrong.

3) Avoid a very public trial that competitors could point to and say "Apple copies too!"

All of those are probably worth more to Apple than the actual lawsuit damages.

If Apple had licensed the design before they shipped their OS, they probably would have paid the same per unit cost as everyone else.

The Mondaine design is powerful, timeless, and most importantly popular. By using it rather than designing their own clock, Apple taps into an aesthetic of affluent European influence. This subliminal association is what Apple is paying for, not pixels.

Public transportation is now an "affluent aesthetic"?

European public transit is, at least from the perspective of non-Europeans.

Affluent people in Europe actually use public transport.

So who are all the roads and luxury cars for?

Logic fail. Saying the affluent use public transport does not mean that they don't necessarily use roads also.

However, the road infrastructure is for everyone, just like public transit infrastructure.

European cities are built around public transport. Thus main railroad and bus stations are usually stationed downtown.

And you should note that railways in Europe are often fast and comfortable, thus using rail can get you to your inner city destination a full hour faster (only measuring from the city boundary) than going by car (degree of luxury really plays no part in city traffic speed).

Do not forget that European cities have not been built around its majesty The Car.

The majority of luxury models of European cars are made for export. Not to say they don't drive there (of course they do), but it's often quicker to travel by train so a lot of people do so, even though they own a car.

Let me tell you something

Every tram stop in Zurich has a clock with that drawing on it.

More surprisingly, that clock is exact to the second. As in, take your mobile phone (time coming from the network), see when the time changes and see the hand moving at the exact moment.

Sure, it's probably reading a radio signal or something, still impressive.

It's not just affluent aesthetic of 'public transport', it's the whole structure of it.

Very few tram stops in Zurich have any kind of analog clock. And I'd bet that most of those clocks don't have the red second hand, which is the most distinctive feature of the railway clock.

Swiss public transportation. Have you been to Switzerland? It's an Old-World millionaire's dream.

I like that certain companies have balls to make deals and to pay instead of changing things like Swiss clock images, 'Metro style' names... Oh wait

Balls? They are passing the costs onto their buyers. Takes no balls at all really.

No they're not. iOS6 is a free upgrade. And iPhones have been at the same price point since forever.

In any case, if the cost was passed on to consumers, it would be less than $1 per device.

What most people don't know about this clock design is, that the Swiss Railways are licensing it to a watch manufacturer who sells them in retail. The watch with the exact same design is available commercially. Therefore suing Apple and making Apple pay is something the actually have to do without risking their other licensing deals.

I do wonder if this is officially licensed:

http://www.chumby.com/guide/search?sort_by=score&device=...

I've had it on my chumby for about a year.

I can't believe it either. Did they pay as much to their own designers? The entire iOS design can be worth thousands of this clock.

I don't think the designer who stole the clock (and cost Apple $21M) is still with Apple. This is damage mitigation, not paying for the actual value.

But for Apple design is everything, so it's not a noticeable dent in the budget.

> But for Apple design is everything, so it's not a noticeable dent in the budget.

I'd have put an "and" here: design is everything to Apple, and 21m is — as somebody else noted — 3h of profits. Not revenue, note, profits.

Watching the motion of the real Swiss railway clocks [1] with its smoothness is quite soothing.

"It requires only about 58.5 seconds to circle the face, then the hand pauses briefly at the top of the clock. It starts a new rotation as soon as it receives the next minute impulse from the master clock." [2]

1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvIvKiDWDks 2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_railway_clock

I imagine that the part you find soothing is the first 58.5 seconds of each minute, where the second hand just rotates continuously rather than ticking.

But I find it really jarring that the clock stops every minute and then starts up again with a jerk.

Interesting fact. I wonder why they could not make it go round in 60 seconds exactly. Did you they have to play with some motor limitations for the seconds hand, or was it purely by design ?

It's to keep all the railway clocks in sync. You could have one that's running up to 1.5s slow and it will still be able to keep up with all the rest, and they're all resynchronised with each other every minute. This is important when it could be the difference between catching a train or not.

If it's really that important, why not just use digital clocks?

This was designed in the 50s!

History and culture, it's a symbolic touchstone for the Swiss railway. It could of course be ripped out and replaced with a digital one, but would it be as well loved? Possibly, possibly not.

To most of us in the world, I am sure, there's a fifteen minute standard deviation on arrival/departure times :(

Because this is a mechanical clock. It has to catch 60 seconds independent of environmental conditions (weather, snow, cold etc.) which adversely affect the performance of the clock.

When you are making $4 million in profit per hour[1], you might as well buy a nice watch (face).

1.http://daringfireball.net/linked/2012/07/27/amzn-profit-corr...

While this is obviously a copy, I'm not sure why everyone loves this design. The only thing that looks different from every other watch in the world is the ball on the end of the second hand, and I find it disturbing.

It'll grow on you :)

Can Swiss Federal Railways now turn around and offer a license to Samsung for $9.99?

It is their property, they can do whatever they want with it.

Depends on the terms of the licence. It might be exclusive in certain domains.

When an app that lets you upload photos to the internet sells for 50 times this, I think I'm OK with it.

Apple has sold a quarter billion iPhones. This fee works out to 10 cents per phones for one of the most prominent images. Arguably worth it.

This clock isn't used on the iPhone.

I imagine if they've just licensed it they'll be considering getting their money worth so to speak.

Whoops. Well, they've sold about a 100 million iPads, so it's more like 20 cents.

An identical clock is used at most of the swimming pools I've competed/trained in for lap times and synchronization. I remember it distinctly, since I spent so much time looking at it. It even has the "smooth motion, with a pause at the minute mark" feature that others in the thread are discussing. I suppose that also has practical advantages for swim meets.

I sure hope my high school won't also have to pay $21,000,000; I don't think they'll be able to afford it.

With a red (not orange) second hand? With that big counter-weight circle on the end of the second hand? With square-cut parallel-sided hands?

Yes, yes, and yes. Especially those last two things, that's the most distinctive thing about it.

Does your high school manufacture its own clocks?

I think Apple should actually pay another $21M to your high school as well:). I am pretty sure some of their designers go swimming in between researching for "inspiration" for the most iconic designs of human civilization:)

> An identical clock is used at most of the swimming pools I've competed/trained in for lap times and synchronization.

It's quite possible - you can buy them new from the original manufacturer. They are not exclusive to the railways.

http://www.mobatime.com/products/analog-clocks/analog-outdoo...

Kinda puts the whole Samsung deal in perspective, doesn't it? $1 billion seems like a bargain now.

3-4 Hours of net profit. :)

Will someone please stand up, gets some balls, and say that the world needs to stick its litigiousness where the sun don't shine? I'm not defending Apple. They screwed the pooch recently suing Samsung. This is karma. But, we need to speak out against people just suing because they can. And, while we're at it, enact laws that restrict the power of unions.

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