They tried for many years to get us to change the name, but it never came down to any real legal battles of any sort. The name change occurred after I left the project, but I think it was a conscious choice on the project's end to finally change the name, give it a new identity. (Someone from Pidgin correct me if I'm wrong -- I was pretty out of the loop during that time period.)

The networks that pidgin supports are slowly dying off though.