By Noah Johnson
Pinterest has filed a trademark infringement suit against a startup called Pintrips in the U.S. District Court for Northern California. Pintrips is a small travel-planning startup that launched in 2012. Pintrips provides travel-planning services, such as flight tracking, where users “pin” routes they are interested in to monitor prices. The service contains a limited number of social network elements where a user can interact and share tips with others. Pinterest, on the other hand, is an Internet giant and currently the third largest social network by user count in the United States, behind only Facebook and Twitter.
Pinterest alleges that a number of Pintrips’ actions amount to trademark infringement. Pinterest’s first claim focuses on the prominently displayed “pin” button on both companies’ websites. The complaint alleges that “[a]n important element in Pinterest’s success has been the popularity of its PIN IT button,” which allows users to save content on the site. Pintrips has a similar button. The outcome of the case will reveal whether Pinterest can successfully lay claim to the “Pin” button. While not a ubiquitous feature of the Internet, the “Pin” feature is used in a variety of applications, such as Google Maps. Further, “Dropping a Pin” has become synonymous with letting your friends know if you are in a certain place while using certain apps.
Significantly, Pinterest states that it is a social media bookmarking service “for all types of media,” while Pintrips boasts itself as a social media bookmarking service for “information about travel and flights exclusively.” Pinterest is attempting to establish exclusive ownership over the trademark rights to “Pin” buttons and “PIN-formative” within the entire realm of social media.
Pinterest’s allegations beg the question of whether Pintrips is a “social media bookmarking service” at all.Pintrips is different from traditional social media sites, like Facebook and Pinterest, in several ways.First, Pintrips operates as a browser plugin.Once a user downloads the Chrome plugin, Pintrips sits on top of the user’s browser, allowing him to pin things as he visits different sites.Second, while Pintrips allows users to collaborate with others, the service’s main function is to assist people in finding flights and streamlining the travel-planning process.
Pintrips is a viable service that users may would still find useful even if social networking was completely absent from the design. Granted, the social aspect is what makes the service “fun” and would allow the Pintrips to grow quickly if people adopted the service. However, classic social networks, such as Facebook or Pinterest, do not offer services that can be viably separated from the social component of their business model.
It will be interesting to see if Pinterest can make a convincing argument that there is a strong “relationship between the goods or services of the parties in terms of utility, use, and trade channels” in line with the likelihood of confusion test for infringement. This factor of the test is not dispositive, but it may weigh heavily. A decision on infringement (or lack thereof) could come down to how expansive or narrow a definition the court gives to a “social network.” If the court adopts a wide definition, something akin to “a web service that allows users to connect with another,” then the definition will cover Pintrips. If the court adopts a narrow definition, similar to “a web service that has the primary purpose of connecting users and facilitating relationships using messages, comments, and images,” the result will likely be in favor of Pintrips since the site does not resemble a traditional social network.
The bottom line is that Pinterest is aggressively defending its trademark territory. In this case, Pinterest has asked for an immediate injunction of the use of “Pintrips, Pin or any other PIN-formative mark.” Pinterest also requests three times Pinterest’s damages from Pintrips’ use of the marks, or alternatively, thee times Defendant’s profits. If Pinterest prevails, the outcome will either radically change Pintrips’ identity and brand or put them squarely out of business.
Reposted from Briefs + Bytes
