A federal court in the state of Delaware, USA, issued its ruling in the trademark litigation between X, owned by Elon Musk, and a startup intending to launch a rival social network.
This startup, known as Operation Bluebird, initially began operating under the name Twitter.now; however, the court prohibited use of that name and ruled in favor of X regarding the primary trademark "Twitter." Nonetheless, the court stated elsewhere in its opinion that X had likely abandoned two other related trademarks - the word "Tweet" and the Twitter bird logo - thereby allowing others to use them. Operation Bluebird took advantage of this opportunity and redesigned its website as "Tweet.app," using the now-available word "Tweet," and made it available to the public.
In fact, the main nature of this startup’s activity is not so much building an innovative, unique product; rather its primary focus is acquiring trademarks that X has effectively relinquished. Even the company’s homepage explicitly describes its goal as such: reclaiming what Elon Musk lost when he renamed Twitter to X; the sentence on that page jokingly notes that Musk abandoned the bird when he left town.
The project is led by two lawyers: Michael Proffe, the startup’s founder and an Illinois resident, and Stephen Coates, who previously served as Twitter’s trademark counsel. Given the legal backgrounds of these two individuals, their claim of being solely interested in launching a new social network is not particularly convincing; it appears their main objective is acquiring valuable trademarks associated with the Twitter brand.
That said, the Tweet.app platform is at least in its early beta stages and is available to users. The company has stated that more than 172,000 people requested early access before the official launch of the service; a figure that likely reflects users’ continuing attachment to the Twitter brand - a name X is no longer permitted to use.
Another notable point is that the startup charges twenty dollars from each user for reserving a username and membership on this social network; an amount that will likely cover part of the legal costs of this case.
It should be recalled that the ruling in this case is not final. Colm F. Connolly, a judge of the U.S. District Court, issued a separate decision in response to X’s request for a preliminary injunction to prevent Operation Bluebird from using a set of trademarks related to Twitter - trademarks the startup alleges X abandoned after the rebrand.
Accordingly, the judge granted X’s request for a preliminary injunction regarding eight trademarks associated with Twitter; but denied that request with respect to the mark "Tweet" and the Twitter bird logo.
Judge Connolly wrote in part of his opinion that Operation Bluebird will likely succeed in proving that X ceased actual use of the mark "Tweet" and the bird logo and does not intend to resume use of those marks in the future.
Given that the company is now known as X across most platforms and channels, further proceedings in this case will determine whether X ultimately succeeds in retaining full ownership of the trademarks associated with the former Twitter brand.
Stephen Coates, head of Operation Bluebird, said in a statement shared by email with TechCrunch on the occasion of the platform’s rebranding: "They made good on their word; they abandoned both the bird and the word Tweet." He added: "A tweet was never a company; the word merely expresses something someone says. The word remained three years after a company tried to replace it because people refused to let it go. We believe that fact clearly shows to whom the word ultimately belongs."