What began with brands like Invicta or T.W. Steel copying the designs of Rolex professional watches, U-Boat, and some other brands alike, has now turned into a situation that is totally out of control and not regulated at all. Furthermore, there are now hundreds of these ‘knockoff’ brands that keep crossing the fine lines of intellectual property infringement and have become plain ‘copycats’ profiting from iconic designs of major luxury watch brands. Do I consider this wrong and infuriating? Of course, I do. To say the least.
According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a “knockoff” is a copy that sells for less than the original and a “counterfeit” is made in imitation of something else with intent to deceive. That very same source states that the difference between the way these two words are defined lies in the use of the words “copy” and “imitation”. In my opinion, while both words have different meanings, they still stand up for the same type of unwanted business practice that I just call plain plagiarism.
According to the U.S. Copyright Office, copyright is a type of intellectual property that protects original works of authorship as soon as an author fixes the work in a tangible form of expression. On Wikipedia, counterfeit watches or replica watches are defined as unauthorized copies of an authentic watch.
If we take all of these definitions into consideration, I strongly believe that we should be as tough on ‘homage watches’ or ‘knockoffs’ as we are against replica watches. Ultimately, these watches are profiting off of the original designs that are owned by others.
What slowly began with brands like Invicta or T.W. Steel copying the designs of Rolex professional watches, U-Boat, Audemars Piguet, and other brands alike, has now turned into a situation that is totally out of control and no one seems to be doing anything about it. Now, there are hundreds of ‘knockoff’ brands selling directly through Amazon and eBay. Below we have some examples of what some of these watches look like, all selling well under the $200 USD price range.
A simple search using the word ‘watches’ on Amazon reveals hundreds of ‘copycats’ mirroring the looks of watches from Rolex, Omega, IWC, Panerai, Audemars Piguet, Franck Muller, Ulysse Nardin, Richard Mille, and even Patek Philippe, just to name a few. All of them always in stock and most selling under the $150 USD price range. Oh, and if you are looking to have one of those very Instagrammable Casio G-Shock ‘CasiOaks’, Amazon will offer you a conversion kit —when buying the Casio G-Shock 2100— so you can DIY.
Now, one of the questions that I ask myself is why when it comes to other product categories everyone seems to be more permissible and relatively OK with knockoffs? Is it because of the price point or because some of those items are more basic in terms of wearability?
For instance, if someone wears a dress from Zara or Forever 21 that looks exactly like a particular dress designed by an Haute Couture house, let’s say, Dior or Chanel, why only a few seem to have a problem with that? Are the brands really enforcing it and protecting their designs as they should?
While I understand that there’s only so much that the watch brands’ legal departments can do about all these watch knockoffs and copycats, I think that something needs to be done by the watch industry as a whole in order to stop these clones from continuing to steal the iconic designs from the Swiss watch brands.
As a watch lover, I have a true appreciation for all things horological and while I understand that not every watch lover can afford watches in the four-figure plus range, I still would like to see people steer away from these knockoff watches and rather proudly wear a Timex, Seiko, Citizen or a Bulova.
Many will debate and disagree with me that these watches are not as bad as replica watches because they don’t bear a known brand name on their dials; however, in my opinion, this is just as bad. Stealing a penny is as bad as stealing a dollar in my book. Therefore, stealing a design without adding the brand name is just as bad as trying to imitate —replicate— the full watch including its brand name.
While some of you have been jumping on the bandwagon of the ‘CasiOak’ because of your love for watches, in my opinion, buying one of these conversion kits makes you part of the problem rather than part of the solution. We can agree to disagree but hopefully, this article raises some awareness in the watch world for these watches to soon be gone from eBay and Amazon. My two cents!
