The application to invalidate the trademark rights for “Twitter” did not come from a random individual. The initiative is being led by a startup called Operation Bluebird, based in Virginia. Interestingly, its lawyer is Stephen Coates – the very person who previously defended the Twitter brand, working as its trademark attorney. Coates, who knows the inner workings of protecting this brand, decided to take advantage of the moment when, in his opinion, the former owner abdicated. Operation Bluebird is not hiding its intentions: it wants to acquire the rights to the words “Twitter” and “tweet” to use them for its new social media platform, which will operate at “twitter.new.” This is an unprecedented situation in which a former employee is using the corporation’s inaction to revive a brand that the corporation itself has killed.
The key to understanding this dispute is the concept of “abandonment,” which refers to the abandonment of a trademark. In intellectual property law, owning a registered trademark is not only a privilege but also an obligation to use it. Operation Bluebird’s argument is simple and, at first glance, logical. Since Elon Musk publicly announced in 2023 that he was “bidding farewell to the Twitter brand and all the birds,” and the service underwent a rebranding to X, removing the old logo and changing the domain, this constitutes a permanent cessation of the use of the trademark. The applicants claim that X Corp has essentially “eradicated” the Twitter brand from its products, services, and marketing. To a layperson, the case seems obvious: if you throw an old television in the trash, a neighbor can take it. However, in the world of trademarks, you must prove that the owner has no intention of returning to the trademark.
Although X Corp has removed the blue bird from the homepage and app, from a formal standpoint, the matter is not so black and white. Elon Musk’s lawyers made sure that the documents were in order. Last year, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) approved an application to renew the registration of the Twitter trademark, filed by X Corp. This means that, formally, the company still claims the right to the name. This is a classic example of a so-called “defensive trademark” – maintaining a trademark not to use it, but to block competitors. X Corp has not yet officially commented on the Operation Bluebird application, but it can be expected that the line of defense will be based on the claim that consumers still associate the word “Twitter” with their platform, even if it is now called X.
Experts are divided, although they see significant hurdles for X Corp. Josh Gerben, an independent attorney specializing in intellectual property law, points out that X will have difficulty defending rights to trademarks that it does not actually use in commerce. However, intellectual property law is a multi-layered game. Even if Operation Bluebird successfully leads to the cancellation of the registration, X Corp may try to block their actions based on unfair competition or the reputation of the former brand. This dispute will be a fascinating test of whether tech giants can “hoard” brands that they themselves have publicly discontinued. For us, the observers, it is a lesson that in business, words (and tweets) have legal weight.
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