Social travel website Pintrips has successfully beaten off a trademark infringement lawsuit filed by social media giant Pinterest.
A judge sided with the much smaller Pintrips, deciding the art of ‘pinning’ is a universal action both in the online and real world and cannot be trademarked by a business.
The Pintrips website and mobile app lets users save flight itineraries and pin them to a trip board which can be shared to a person’s social media feeds.
U.S. District Judge Haywood Gilliam threw out the Pinterest complaint, which was first filed in 2013, deciding Pinterest cannot exclusively own the concept of pinning.
"No reasonable weighing of the evidence presented at trial could lead to the conclusion that Pintrips used the term pin as a way to identify, distinguish, or indicate the source of its goods or services," the judge said in his ruling.
"In fact, any attempt to distinguish Pintrips by use of its pin button would be futile, given that the words pin and pinning have been used to describe the same feature by many of the most popular and well-known software and Internet products since well before Pintrips’ creation."
"Pinterest’s suggestion that it may, at some unknown time in the future, create a travel booking tool like Pintrips falls well short of the ‘strong possibility’ of expansion a plaintiff is required to demonstrate in order for this factor to weigh in favor of a finding of confusion," Gilliam added.
Pinterest had demanded Pintrips change its name and end any reference to ‘pinning.’
Pinterest has claimed it ’causes confusion among consumers and implies a connection, affiliation or sponsorship that does not exist.’
It was also seeking unspecified damages.
