In a closely watched case about copyrights held by foreign companies, a federal appeals court in January struck down Swiss watchmaker Omega S.A.’s attempt to use U.S. copyright law to block Costco Wholesale Corp.’s sale of its luxury watches.
The case has had a long and tangled history that went all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court. It began when Omega, a subsidiary of The Swatch Group Ltd., sued Costco in 2004 for selling 43 of its Seamaster watches with a copyrighted globe design at below market prices. Omega had obtained a copyright on the globe design in 2003 and suggested a retail price of $1,995 for each watch. Costco bought 117 of the watches through the “gray market”—that is, from an unauthorized distributor that purchased them through third parties—and priced them at $1,299 each, according to court records.
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