Judge blocks X rival from using Twitter name, but allows ‘Tweet’ for now
A federal judge temporarily barred an X rival from using the Twitter name, but found that X was likely to have abandoned the “Tweet” trademark and bird logo. The startup has since relaunched as Tweet.app.
A Delaware federal court has ruled on a trademark dispute between Elon Musk's X and a startup aiming to launch a competing social media platform. Operation Bluebird, originally launched as Twitter.now, was barred from using that name due to the court's affirmation of X's claim on the "Twitter" trademark. However, the court ruled that X likely abandoned the trademarks for the word "tweet" and the Twitter bird logo, rendering them available for Operation Bluebird's use.
Consequently, Operation Bluebird has rebranded their website as Tweet.app, utilizing the freed-up "tweet" name, and made it public. The startup, headquartered in Virginia, is not so much focused on creating a unique product but rather on acquiring abandoned trademarks left by X post its rebranding. The website's homepage explicitly states their intent to reclaim what Musk stripped away when he renamed the platform X, along with discarding the bird icon.
The startup is spearheaded by two lawyers, Michael Peroff and Stephen Coates, both with strong legal backgrounds. Their move seems more likely to be a strategy to acquire Twitter's valuable trademarks, which could be worth millions, rather than to build a new social network. Operation Bluebird's website has already garnered over 172,000 users before its official launch, likely due to the enduring popularity of the "Twitter" name, which X can no longer claim.
The court's decision on this case is not yet final. U.S. District Court Judge Colm F. Connolly issued a split ruling on X's request for a preliminary injunction halting Operation Bluebird from using several Twitter trademarks that the startup claims X abandoned following its rebranding. The judge granted X's motion for a preliminary injunction on eight Twitter-related marks, but denied it when it came to the "tweet" mark and the Twitter bird logo.
The judge reasoned that Operation Bluebird was "likely to succeed in proving both that X Corp. discontinued the bona fide use of the Tweet mark and Bird logo and that it intends not to resume the use of the marks." The case will further proceed to decide whether X still holds rights to any of the Twitter trademarks, given that the company now operates under the name X. Coates, the president of Operation Bluebird, highlighted this in an announcement about the rebranding, stating, "They kept the word.
They let go of the bird, and they let go of the tweet. A tweet was never a corporation. It's one person saying something. That word survived three years of a company trying to replace it, because the public declined to stop using it. We think that tells you who it belongs to."
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