High Court awards Swatch US$11.6 million in Samsung trade mark dispute

The High Court has awarded the Swatch Group US$11.6 million in negotiation damages against Samsung for trade mark infringement involving watch face apps on the Galaxy App store. Mondaq’s report identifies a substantial damages award in a dispute concerning the use of watch brands in digital products. The supplied extract reports the outcome but does not give the date of the judgment; the article itself was published on 17 September 2026.

The damages assessment involved sharply different valuations. The report states that the court rejected both parties’ extreme positions of US$170 million and US$301, instead awarding US$11.6 million. The award was therefore substantially below the larger valuation but considerably above the smaller one. That contrast is central to the reported outcome: neither party’s proposed figure became the court’s assessment of negotiation damages for the trade mark infringements involving the watch face apps.

According to the report, the court established principles for assessing damages where brand owners do not license their marks and no comparable market royalties exist. Those circumstances distinguish the valuation issue from one supported by an existing licensing market. The supplied material does not explain the court’s calculation or reproduce its detailed reasoning, so it does not support a general royalty rate or a prediction of damages in another dispute. The concrete outcome is the US$11.6 million award against Samsung.