Trademark Snafu: Apple iPad iOS 6 Clock

SBB, a Swiss railway operator, and a Swiss watchmaker are weighing their options with regard to the Apple iPad iOS 6 watch app. The iOS 6 watch app (top) looks startlingly like the emblematic clock designed by Zurich-born engineer Hans Hilfiker in 1944 (bottom).

"We now have to agree on the legal framework between SBB and Apple," SBB spokesman Reto Kormann said as SBB still holds the trademark

Mondaine Group, the company that has held the license since 1986 to make clocks and wristwatches for consumers based on the 20th-century design classic, said it would also challenge Apple.

The Swiss clock was designed for the national rail service to help travelers check the time at a distance as they hurried to catch their trains.
In 1953 Hilfiker added a red second hand, which pauses briefly at the top of each minute "to enable trains to depart punctually", as he put it.
The second hand with a circle at its end is based on the device a station manager on the platform would wave for a train's departure, and SBB holds the rights to the design.

Apple has not yet responded.

[via Reuters]