If you wish to purchase a watch for status too impress on lookers, which by the way to any true timepiece aficionado is of course totally ridiculous, my advice is definitely go directly to an authorised dealer. “In addition, we are working with others to increase punishments for repeat intellectual property offenders and for IP crimes involving gangs and organized criminal enterprises.” That battle is ongoing, Collado says, in the face of stiff opposition from the Internet industry. These days AWA is working to pass the so-called “Rogue Websites Bill” (the Protect IP Act of 2011) which would help to shut down Internet sites that sell counterfeit watches. “We organized the multi-industry coalition that won enactment of the 1996 act which toughened penalties and gave trademark owners stronger search and seizure rights.” A decade later, AWA led the way in drafting and lobbying for stronger weapons against counterfeiters. That act made counterfeiting a felony for the first time. House of Representatives and on to final enactment,” says Executive Director Emilio “Toby” Collado. “The association was the prime catalyst in moving the 1984 Trademark Anti-counterfeiting Act through the U.S. In the counterfeit fight, AWA has played an important role. The association’s legal counsel is the prominent Washington, D.C., law firm Covington & Burling. Its mission is very specific: to be the voice of its members in Washington, ensuring that the watch industry has input into legislation affecting it on a host of issues ranging from tariffs to regulations on alligator and reptile watch bands to mercury levels in button-cell watch batteries. AWA is not a traditional trade association that offers a wide array of member services.
Washington-based AWA works on the legislative and regulatory front. Customs and federal, state, and local law-enforcement agencies, and even their own private investigators, to fight criminals who steal their intellectual property (IP).Ī counterfeit Patek Philippe watch seized by U.S. Some of them spend fortunes annually in a multi-front battle, working with U.S. The watch companies act independently to protect their trademarks and branded products.
As with counterfeits, AWA opposes the importation and sale of gray-market goods in the United States.)ĪWA and its 30-plus member watch companies have been contending with counterfeiters for decades. Unlike counterfeits, gray-market watches are produced by a brand, but sold outside the brand’s authorized retail network. (Counterfeit watches should not be confused with so-called “gray-market” watches. AWA claims that the only protection a consumer has is to buy from an authorized dealer. Everyone has to contend with it.” Including watch collectors, Omer says. We’re talking about pieces being sold in excess of $50,000 and $100,000 that are counterfeit watches. “We are now faced with a new onslaught, which is getting bigger. “The counterfeiters have now mastered ultra-complex movements.”Īlmost every luxury Swiss watch brand is dealing with the superfake phenomenon, says AWA’s chairman, Jon Omer, former head of DeWitt America LLC. “That was one of the first times I’ve held in my hand a fake tourbillon watch, a real high-precision mechanism,” Arnoux told Swiss Broadcasting Corp.’s swissinfo.ch news agency. But what was most striking was the movement. Only on closer inspection did he find tell-tale signs of a fake: a piece of plastic in the case where carbon should be, a crystal that should have been nonreflective, but wasn’t. Everything about the watch seemed like a real Hublot, down to the vanilla-scented rubber strap. Michel Arnoux, head of the anti-counterfeiting unit of the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry (FH), cites a counterfeit Hublot Big Bang tourbillon watch seized by Swiss customs officials. It’s not just the imitation of what the industry calls “the appearance parts” (case, dial, bracelet, etc.) it’s also the quality of the mechanical movements inside. These days, watch executives swap stories about counterfeit watches that are such spitting images of the real McCoys that the brands themselves have trouble spotting them. Fake watches confiscated by Switzerland’s customs authority in 2008
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