> Because a clone is criminal. As long as I know. And is not only against the law, It is morally theft,
I just want to respond to this because we see a lot of the same comments in the software industry and I think it dilutes the meaning of the law to speak imprecisely.
If you make a watch and put a brand name on it for which you have no license, that is a trade mark infringement. It is illegal in most countries. It is not theft. Theft is where you take something that belongs to someone else, thereby depriving them of it. Infringement is where you use something that belongs to someone else, often without depriving them of it. They are different things, both legally and morally.
There are design patents, and I suspect that there are probably design patents for watches (although I've never looked). If you copy a design that is patented for which you have no license, you are infringing the patent. This is illegal in most parts of the world (but probably different parts of the world than trademark infringement). It is also infringement, not theft.
Fashion designs can not by copyrighted under most (all?) international treaties. If you make a watch that looks similar to another watch, but that does not infringe the trademark, nor infringe any design patents, then you are not infringing at all. It is neither illegal, nor immoral (IMHO anyway) to do this. However, it may be fraud if you try to pass it off as something it is not, which is illegal, of course.
Karl Lagerfeld, the famous designer had an interesting comment about look-a-like copies. When prompted in an interview (unfortunately I can't remember which programme it was on) for his opinion about people who buy knock bags he replied something to the effect of, "Those people are not my customers. None of my customers would buy those bags. Neither would customers who are happy with a knock off bag want to buy my bags. It makes no difference to me". As much as I realise that not everybody will have such an expansive point of view, I've always thought it to be an incredibly wise position to take in the fashion industry.
