Yesterday, a federal court issued a major ruling against social
media giant Pinterest in a trademark
infringement lawsuit against much smaller startup Pintrips.
Pinterest is America’s third largest social network behind
Facebook and Twitter. The company is currently valued at $11 billion and has an
estimated 80 million monthly users. Users view, share, and organize content by
creating “pins” on their virtual pin boards.
Pintrips is self-described as a collaborative trip-planning
dashboard for tracking flights and prices across destinations in real time.
In October 2013, Pinterest brought a trademark infringement
lawsuit against Pintrips, alleging
not only that the Pintrips name infringed their trademark, but also that using
the word “Pin” itself was an infringement. Pinterest, Inc. v. Pintrips, Inc., 3:13-cv-04608, No. 1
2 (N.D. Cal. 2015).
In his decision,
U.S. District Judge Haywood Gilliam Jr. stated that Pintrips’ use of the
term “pin” was non infringing fair use because used the word “pin” was being
used to describe a feature of its service. In contrast, a trademark must describe
goods or services, not features or functionality. Id. at 27-36; 15 U.S.C. §1115(b)(4).
Judge
Gilliam also maintained that with respect to the marks “Pintrips” vis-à-vis
“Pinterest,” “Pinterest has not met its burden to prove a likelihood of consumer
confusion.” Id. at 25. The
Judge found that Pinterest’s trademark was strong and that it was similar to
Pintrips. However, those facts did not
outweigh the fact that the ways the two services were used was
not similar. Pinterest, 3:13-cv-04608, No.
261 at 25.
The ruling will likely be viewed as a major setback for
Pinterest, as they have been fighting this court battle since October 2013. Pinterest alleged
that Pintrips intentionally selected their business name based on the
popularity of “Pinterest.”
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