"identical" is purely my observation...

i.e. I could not see any way in which it diverged from the patented design. I might be wrong.

What I posted above started out as some notes for my own reference, but I thought it might be of some interest to others here. It certainly is not intended to be authoritative.

I would certainly appreciate some input into this discussion by somebody with expertise with patents as I would be keen to know how much divergence from the patent would be necessary to avoid a license agreement. Comparing what I can see of the Orient system with the diagrams submitted by Pellaton, it seems to me that at a functional level any difference would be very subtle.

But even with the Timex design, how critical (in terms of patent protection) is the cam profile or whether or not jewels are incorporated into the cam followers? Timex were building them in vast quantities from as early as 1957.

Or did IWC only maintain the patent for 10 years?