The pinning social network website Pinterest has won its legal battle with Chinese national Qian Jin, a serial cybersqautter who has been using the website’s trademark name since July 2011, on 30 September. The company was granted $7.2m in damages and legal fees.
“Pinterest has used the inherently distinctive Pinterest name and mark since 3 March, 2010, and Pinterest gained widespread fame before defendant [Qian Jin] registered and began to use the infringing domains,” the social networking company said in its complaint against the Chinese cybersquatter on August 2012.
The company added that the defendant has applied to register Pinterest as a trademark in China, along with fellow social networking sites Twitter, Foursquare, and photo-sharing site Instagram.
After Pinterest and the Pin mark gained fame in the United States, Jin registered hundred of domain names very similar to Pinterest. These domain names directed web traffic away from the original website and resulted in financial harm.
The social networking company was seeking $12m, however, Richard Seeborg, the district judge, awarded it $7.2m and issued an injunction against Jin to hand over all the 100 domain names he had been using including pintesrest.com, pinterest.es, pimterest.com and pinterost.com.
Cybersquatting is the act of using or registering a trademarked domain name with the intent of making profit.
