X sues to protect Twitter brand Musk has been trying to kill
- Reference: 1765976854
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/12/17/x_twitter_brand_lawsuit/
- Source link:
A week ago, Operation Bluebird [1]announced that "after 12 months of quiet work," it had filed to claim the Twitter trademark.
Having acquired Twitter in 2022, billionaire Musk ditched the branding in favor of X a year later. [2]Gone was the bird logo and the name of the company he splurged $44 billion for. Years on, one might assume the name "Twitter" and its associated branding should be fair game, right?
[3]
Wrong. In response to Operation Bluebird's attempt to claim the trademark, X's [4]complaint [PDF] snapped back: "Twitter never left and continues to be exclusively owned by X Corp."
[5]
The complaint continues: "Each day, more than four million users access the X platform through the TWITTER.com domain; users around the world continue to refer to the platform as TWITTER and posts as TWEETS; consumer- and client-facing webpages continue to use each of the TWITTER Marks; third-party licensees continue to display the TWITTER logo as the social media favicon on their business websites."
[6]X shuts down European Commission ad account after €120M fine announcement
[7]EU metes out first-ever Digital Services Act fine, dings X for blue check deception
[8]X's location tags remind users of the internet's oldest rule: Trust nothing
[9]X says passkey reset isn't about a security issue – it's to finally kill off twitter.com
Considering the effort Musk and his minions have put into burying Twitter, the acknowledgement that millions of users still reject Musk's preferred X is telling. X could have gone down the route of simply contesting the trademark claim. Instead, it has gone on the offensive against Operation Bluebird and filed suit.
As well as calling for a halt to Bluebird's attempts to swipe the Twitter branding and demanding that the United States Patent and Trademark Office "be directed to deny and invalidate Bluebird's application to register the infringing TWITTER mark," the suit also calls for damages.
The Twitter brand might be buried, but in its lawsuit, X has admitted that millions of users still cling to it. Musk's soapbox is therefore not about to let anybody start poking around its grave. ®
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[1] https://www.linkedin.com/posts/operation-bluebird_backwithyourex-activity-7403793868598435840-R1gW
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2023/07/24/twitter_brand/
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/legal&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aULhqcnaMCe6Qb6YOSnkvgAAAU8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://regmedia.co.uk/2025/12/17/twittertrademarklawsuit.pdf
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/legal&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aULhqcnaMCe6Qb6YOSnkvgAAAU8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/08/x_european_commission_ad/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/05/eu_fines_x_dsa/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2025/11/24/x_location_feature/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/27/x_passkey_reset/
[10] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Trademarks
I'm pretty sure having an active website on the twitter domain name would be sufficient to count as usage given it means they and their customers are still using it.
Not registering your trademark makes it harder to prove knowledge by a person infringing it and harder to prove the domains the trademark covers. A social media startup 'randomly' calling themselves bluebird and trying to register the twitter trademark is going to have an extremely hard time disproving prior knowledge of X.
Re: Trademarks
"I'm pretty sure having an active website on the twitter domain name would be sufficient to count as usage given it means they and their customers are still using it."
Indeed. When companies change their name or merge it's also pretty normal for them to retain ownwership of previous brand names and logos as those might well be used in old contracts, communications, and peopke might simply continue to use them in referring to the company / service (as with Twitter).
Can't see that the challenger would have a leg to stand on here, to be honest!
Re: Trademarks
That is technically true, but the criteria for using it are usually pretty generous. Millions of references and an active website will almost certainly count. I don't think X has any risk of losing the trademark. Neither do I think they can prove any damages from an application that, had they done nothing, would likely have been rejected all on its own, so the rest of X's lawsuit doesn't make much sense.
Users around the world continue to refer to the platform as TWITTER and posts as TWEETS
Given the platform is called "X", that does rather sound dangerously adjacent to arguing that Twitter has become a generic term like "Hoover". Perhaps a victory by either side may prove Pyrrhic.
Just remember - even the scraps of garbage the billionaires don't even want is STILL off limits to you.
#EatTheRich
Deadnaming it
Is what Elon would want anyway. Strange conflict.
It's sleeping...
Look, matey, I know a dead bluebird when I see one, and I'm looking at one right now.
Is it an X Bluebird?
X, pronounced "sh"
or z, as in zit
Companies normally go to enormous lengths to prevent their trademarks becoming generic (E.g. Hoover instead of vacuum cleaner, Biro instead of ballpoint pen) but in this case someone bought one of the world's most recognisable brands, renamed it, and is now trying to protect the old name, which almost every website refers to like Prince when he was "the artist" or whatever variant. "X, formerly Twitter" is almost always what you see on news sites etc.
"Prince"
Are you referring to The Artist Formerly Known As The Artist Formerly Known As Prince?
While I laughed at the pretentiousness of the “Artist formally…” thing, along with most people, I only realised much later that he did it to get back at Sony; changing his name to “squiggle” to be deliberately unpronounceable
Will someone please take Elon to the
cleaners financially. The world would love to see him get more than a well deserved slap in the face.
Re: Will someone please take Elon to the
He is investing heavily in the AI bubble. There is a SpaceX IPO planned for next year so Musk can trade ownership of SpaceX for [1]tulips . [2]com . I am really hoping that will make him a millionaire again.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot-com_bubble
Re: Will someone please take Elon to the
"The world would love to see him get more than a well deserved slap in the face."
Judging by the photographs I've seen, he's been on the receiving end of a whole lot of serious slappage.
Re: Will someone please take Elon to the
Let's hope the slappage continues.
Correction needed?
F.t.a. "Having acquired Twitter in 2022, billionaire Musk ditched the branding in favor of X a year later. Gone was the bird logo and the name of the company he splurged $44 billion for."
The article did not mention that most of that 44 billion was "other peoples money".
Melon spend his own (on paper) fortune? Heaven forbid...
Re: Heaven forbid...
Just like his teacher, Trump.
Just wait for all the contractors involved with his golden ballroom and his Trumpiant Arch to be forced into Chapter 11 or 7 because he decides that the work they did was not good enough and they won't get paid.
Grifers both of them.
I recently heard it referred to as TwiX, but I think there may be prior on that.
TWATTER
go with this it's a nod to the original and to the TWAT that destroyed it
Trademarks
I don’t know what the rules are in cowboy land but certainly in the UK, a trademark cannot remain registered as such of it is not in use. This is to stop someone just squatting on a trademark to stop it being used by someone else (which sounds suspiciously like what Musk is trying to do)
Clearly Xitter no longer wish to use the twitter trademark, and I’m not convinced just having the twitter domain name counts as “use” for these purposes if it’s not being actively marketed as such.
If the trademark was never “registered” then I think it’s fair game anyway - I’m sure someone will correct me if I’m wrong