(TotalConservative.com) – Making a similar move as his rival Mark Zuckerberg did in 2021 when he rebranded Facebook as Meta, Tesla and Space X founder Elon Musk is rebranding the social media platform Twitter into X, raising some legal trademark concerns.
On Monday, Musk suddenly renamed the world-renowned social media platform Twitter as the letter X, unveiling a new logo. Aside from many users mourning the banishing of the famous bluebird, other companies could stand in the way of Musk’s efforts by challenging the trademark ownership of X.
Josh Gerben, a trademark attorney, predicts “a 100% chance” of Twitter being sued over the rebrand “by somebody.” Gerben says he counted almost 900 different active trademark registrations that already claimed the letter in an extensive range of different industries.
If the branding of other companies confuses customers, trademark owners can claim infringement of intellectual property rights. Winning such a lawsuit could result in being rewarded monetary compensation for damages or blocking the infringing company’s use of the branding. Musk and Twitter may face such claims in court. Since 2003, Microsoft already owns an X trademark in the communications industry linked to the Xbox gaming system.
Zuckerberg’s Meta registered a federal trademark in 2019 of a blue and white X to use in software development and social media. Meta also just released a new app called Threads, which is text rather than image-focused and designed similarly to Twitter. Zuckerberg and Musk have been heavily feuding ever since Threads was announced, and following its release Musk’s lawyers sent Meta a cease-and-desist letter.
Meta also drew some challenges for intellectual property rights after changing from its original name Facebook. There are currently lawsuits against the company from a virtual reality company called MetaX, an investment firm named Metacapital, and they already settled a lawsuit with another company over the Meta logo using the infinity symbol.
Whether or not Microsoft or Meta will sue Twitter isn’t clear, although Zuckerberg may play that card to maintain the tit-for-tat feud between himself and Musk.
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