Watch Skins Corporation, a company specializing in smartwatch face designs sold through non-fungible tokens (NFTs), has filed a lawsuit against luxury goods group LVMH.
The lawsuit alleges that LVMH, which owns brands like Louis Vuitton, Givenchy, and Tiffany, infringed on Watch Skins’ patented NFT display technology.
The complaint was filed in a Texas federal court on March 10. Watch Skins accuses LVMH of unlawfully using its technology that allows NFT owners to display their digital artworks on smartwatches.
The company claims it first patented this technology in 2018 and showcased it at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in 2020.
According to the lawsuit, TAG Heuer, a Swiss luxury watch brand owned by LVMH, allegedly misused its proprietary technology.
In 2022, TAG Heuer announced its “TAG Heuer Connected Calibre E4” product. According to Watch Skins, this product featured a function that “allows you to display NFT artworks on your watch by connecting your crypto wallet to guarantee authenticity.”
The lawsuit claims TAG Heuer provided instructions on how to use the feature, allegedly infringing on Watch Skins’ patents.
The lawsuit highlights three patents: one for verifying NFT ownership before display, another for authenticating NFTs through a blockchain wallet, and a third for retrieving and displaying custom watch faces based on NFT ownership.
Watch Skins is seeking a jury trial, financial compensation for lost profits and royalties, and a court injunction to prevent LVMH from further using its patented technology.
This lawsuit is part of a growing trend of intellectual property disputes in the NFT space. In a similar case, luxury brand Hermès won a lawsuit against Mason Rothschild over the “MetaBirkins” NFT project, which the court ruled violated Hermès’ trademark rights. In 2023, the court awarded Hermès $133,000 in damages.
Likewise, last year, a U.S. district court in California ruled in favor of Yuga Labs in a copyright infringement case against artists Ryder Ripps and Jeremy Cahen. The artists had launched an NFT collection closely resembling Yuga Labs’ BAYC collection. The court ordered them to pay $9 million in damages, covering disgorgement and other statutory damages.
