Grinding Gears: The Watch Industry's Love of Patents

For most regular people— those who don't spend their time reading editorial posts from regional watch fairs — the concept of a patent is pretty simple. You invent or develop something, pay some lawyers and have it protected by law for 20 years or so. Simple, right? This benefits the inventor's hard work in the short term and breeds more innovation and development in the long run. In many ways, patents are the invisible legal documents that make everything from iPhones to ibuprofen happen.

Of course, the watch industry loves a patent, too. Some famous examples are the modern automatic watch, initially developed as a 'bumper' by Harwood and perfected (then patented) by Rolex in the form of the Perpetual movement. Another more modern example is the Co-Axial Escapement, invented by George Daniels and sold to Omega, who released it commercially in 1999. Eagle (or is that legal) eyed readers will note that 20 years from 1999 is 2019 and that theoretically, the co-axial escapement is in the public domain. Given the fact that no one else has jumped on the Co-Axial train since we can deduce that it's either very expensive or of little practical benefit to replicate Omega's hard work. One expired patent that we can expect to see plenty more of is the recently expired CSEM consortium's patent on silicon in watchmaking. This is a textbook case of how a patent should work. Research and development lead to game-changing technical breakthroughs, inventors profit, and then a few decades later, the rest of the industry reaps the rewards.

Except, this isn't how it goes. Every other week, a watch brand sends out a press release with a breathlessly enthusiastic description of how their latest timepiece boasts a handful of new innovations that are patent pending. Upon closer inspection, it becomes clear that seven times out of 10, these developments aren't bringing anything new into the world of horology— it's a new type of screw, or perhaps a minor redesign of gear teeth, or a slightly tweaked alloy. The purpose of this type of development isn't innovation at all, but rather marketing.

The fact is, when a watch isn't being sold on vibes alone, there's got to be some sales levers in the mix. Using the above examples of a silicon hairspring or a Co-Axial escapement, it's pretty easy to see how these technical improvements can be used to convince a customer to drop a few grand on a new watch. Now, if you don't have any actual innovation, you can have the next best thing — something that sounds like innovation. Because, to be honest, most people don't know how much about the science of isochronism, so saying the patented quangle dark fluxonator sounds pretty convincing, and nobody needs to know that the angle dark fluxonator is pretty much the same as a regular fluxonator.

So next time you find yourself being impressed by the watch industry's innovation, just take a second and ask yourself, who does this innovation benefit, the wearer or the person selling the watch.