The Federal Court of Delaware in the United States made a preliminary ruling in a trademark dispute between X and a startup company. The court prohibited the other party from continuing to use the name “Twitter”, but believed that X had likely already stopped using the term “Tweet” and the Twitter bluebird logo, therefore it did not support X’s request for a ban on these two identifiers for the time being.
The court first blocked the name “Twitter”
This case revolves around Operation Bluebird. The company initially launched its services under the name Twitter.now, attempting to create a social platform that could compete with X. According to the ruling, X's claim to the core trademark “Twitter” was supported by the court, therefore the other party is not allowed to continue using this name.
The court is currently hearing an initial injunction application filed by X, and the conclusion is not a final judgment. However, it has already imposed direct restrictions on the current brand usage of the products in question. Following the ruling, Operation Bluebird has renamed its website to Tweet.app and opened it up for early testing to the public.
“Tweet” and Bluebird are not currently restricted.
However, the court did not fully support X in the other two disputes. The judge believed that Operation Bluebird was likely to prove that X had ceased the actual use of the “Tweet” trademark and the Bluebird logo, and had no intention of resuming its use.
This means that, before the final outcome of the case was announced, X's attempt to prevent the other party from using the term “Tweet” and the related Bluebird logo did not receive equal support. For “Operation Bluebird”, this left room for it to continue advancing product testing under the name “Tweet.app” at present.
The case will continue to be heard.
Operation Bluebird is led by two lawyers, including the founder Michael Peroff, as well as Stephen Coates who previously worked in trademark services at Twitter. The company stated that prior to its official launch, over 172,000 people had applied for account names on the platform.
From the current progress, the focus of this lawsuit is no longer just a dispute over names; it also involves whether X has in fact abandoned some of its old trademarks after the name change. The subsequent trials by the court will determine whether X still retains the rights to more Twitter related identifiers.
