EasyWatch launched in July, selling “great value” watches online, including models called Portofino Sky and Portofino Bubbles. "Portofino" is used as a trade mark by some Richemont products, but easyWatch points out that the name – an Italian port – is also an easyCruise destination.
Richemont contacted easyWatch in July, telling it to stop using the trade mark and to stop selling counterfeit watches.
EasyGroup, on behalf of easyWatch, replied that there was no Portofino watch trademark in Switzerland and that to call easyWatch Portofino a counterfeit was ridiculous as the easyWatch Portofino Sky and Portofino Bubbles range cost £9.95 each. A visit to the websites of some of the Richemont products (Cartier, Van Cleef&Arpels, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Montblanc) show that their watches retail at about $2,500. The easyWatch Portofino watches are decorated with clouds and bubbles respectively while the Richemont watches are decorated with diamonds.
"If anyone at all could confuse an easyWatch with a Richemont watch then I should be charging $2,500 for an easyWatch instead of £9.95," said Haji-Ioannou.
The easyWatch website did not list Portofino Sky or Portofino Bubbles watches today. It appears that their names may have been changed to Imperia Sky and Imperia Bubbles. Imperia is the name of a statue at the harbour of Constance on the German-Swiss border.
