Apple Pays for Swiss Railway Clock Design
Apple may be willing to spend millions in court over some copyright fights, but it has learned the lessons of history and has decided not to mess with the Swiss.
Last month, Switzerland’s railway operator SBB took Cupertino to task for stealing the design of its clock for iOS 6’s Clock app. Now the world’s favorite fondleslab manufacturer has agreed to pay up and license the design from SBB, rather than risk the wrath of the Swiss railways.
The iPad Clock app, according to an SBB spokesperson, was “an unauthorized use by apple,” and thus they needed to work out a “legal and financial” resolution to the issue in order to prevent copyright infringement. However, SBB later admitted that it was “rather proud that a brand as important as Apple is using our design,” to clarify that they weren’t simply taking money for the use of the design. SBB already does in fact license the clock’s design to other companies, including the watchmaker Mondaine, so it can be assumed that Apple did pay to use the design.
According to SBB, the railway clock, which was originally designed by Hans Hilfike in 1944 has become “a symbol of innovation and reliability.”
