We love Pinterest: a board where you can find beautiful photo’s, logos and drawings, and where you can get truly inspired about recipes, decor and holiday destinations. An integral part of Pinterest is the “pin”- functionality: all the things you want to keep you can collect these on your own board. The logo of Pin it has been registered by Pinterest (see left).It happens often with popular applications that people create a variant of the brand. Just think of all the AirBnB and Facebook lookalikes such as Parobook. A tendency that the trademark holder wants to stop, as its trademark dilutes.Pinterest faced the European trademark Pinsex (see below) and filed an opposition. The OHIM compared the marks and saw both differences and similarities. But overall, the similarities won: the word PIN is identical in both trademarks and there is a conceptual similarity.
When assessing the risk of confusion, the OHIM always looks at the distinctiveness of both marks as well as the dominant elements. As Pin It is distinctive in the eyes of the OHIM and PIN is the dominant element in both marks, the opposition is accepted. So, everybody who wants to use a variant with Pin, pin this decision!
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