Location-based note-sharing app Pinwheel has changed its name to Findery, after the U.S. District Court of New York granted Pinweel, a photo-sharing app, a preliminary injunction over the similar names.
In February, Caterina Fake (yep, last name Fake involved in a naming-rights lawsuit…I can’t make this stuff up) launched Pinwheel. The older Pinweel demanded that Pinwheel change its name, and eventually they wound up in court.
Yesterday, our own Anthony Ha–or “Anthony Ha of the TechCrunch blog,” as Nick Bilton (of the Bits blog of The New York Times newspaper) calls him–reported that Fake had redirected pinwheel.com to 2bkco.com, presuming it to be a placeholder for a name change. Now we know that it’s changing to Findery, but the new site isn’t up yet.
BRB, changing our site to a new and improved, court-mandated name!
Fake tells me she can’t comment because of the continuing legal activity around the trademark, but wrote a blog post explaining the change to Findery. You have to wonder if Fake does manage to have the injunction overturned in court, if she would change back to Pinwheel. Pinwheel was only in beta testing, so a name change shouldn’t hurt it much. An ongoing legal battle and a second name change could do more damage than good for Pinwheel Findery.
Play us out, ironically named Pinwheel Crunchbase entry.
