The first PRIM wristwatch – a triumph of advanced Czechoslovak engineering or a reverse engineering succes? Probably both

Abstract

The text deals with the birth of the Czechoslovak PRIM/Spartak wristwatch. Czechoslovakia became only the eighth country in the world to be able to produce high-quality Swiss-type wristwatches after World War II. How important role has played reverse engenering proces of the French template in the development and building of the modern Czechoslovak watchmaking industry is the key topic of this article. In a broader context, its content concerns more general issues of transfer of production and technical knowledge, protection and violation of industrial property rights in the economic, political and economic conditions of socialist Czechoslovakia in the 1950s