"Tweet" and the bird logo apparently enter the public domain
A court has ruled that X Corp. has not abandoned its trademark rights to the 'Twitter' name, despite rebranding to X. The decision was based on the company's continued use of 'formerly known as Twitter' in app store listings.
Why it matters
This ruling clarifies the legal standards for trademark abandonment in the context of corporate rebranding and the retention of residual brand goodwill.
This case involves Project Bluebird, a social media service previously named “twitter.new” and renamed to tweet.app immediately after this ruling (for reasons this post makes obvious). Project Bluebird’s service is designed to reimagine the Twitter service that Musk imploded when he morphed Twitter into X. Project Bluebird claims X has abandoned the TWITTER, TWEET and Bird Logo trademarks. In 2025, Project Bluebird filed ITU applications for TWITTER and TWEET.
Citing the following evidence, the court says X hasn’t abandoned the TWITTER marks:
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