This Brand Is Your Brand. This Brand Is My Brand?

Can you create a product that references, parodies, or uses parts from another brand? Many entrepreneurs are trying…and then getting sued. But the law is far from settled. This is the story of one startup that fought back and might just help change the way brands are built.

- LIZ BRODY

Vortic is a watch company. But in 2015, that description was overly generous. It was more like two guys working out of a storage closet with $40,000 from a Kickstarter. To make ends meet, one of those guys also had a corporate job at Walmart. They aspired to make watches, sure, but they’d never actually done it.

That’s why when a cease-and-desist letter arrived from one of the largest watch companies in the world, they thought it was a joke.

The sender was Swatch Group. “I had to google it,” Vortic cofounder R.T. Custer admits. He learned that the Swiss conglomerate was doing $9 billion in net sales largely through its 18 brands, which included Breguet, Longines, Omega, Harry Winston, and— oh, now it made sense—Hamilton. “I was like, Holy crap.” He knew it had to be the ad they’d just run in WatchTime magazine.

Vortic’s plan was to build modern wristwatches, but to build them with salvaged parts from vintage American pocket watches (as well as some new bits from a 3D metal printer). The ad featured a prototype of the kind of pieces they’d be selling, and the elegant face on that prototype was…an antique Hamilton.

A legal question was being raised here. If Vortic takes a piece of an old watch and then combines it into a new product, is that trademark infringement? Swatch obviously thought so. Custer thought not—and was willing to bet his company and life savings on it. Some might say his fight was insane; some might call it Custer’s Last Stand (particularly apt because, yes, he shares a bloodline with the general). And now, nearly six years later, the lawsuit known as Hamilton International Ltd. v. Vortic LLC is still unresolved.