US Judge Temporarily Bars 'Bluebird' from Using the Name 'Twitter' - Sarmad

Elon Musk’s X Corp. persuaded a federal judge in Delaware to issue a temporary restraining order barring a social media startup from using the name “Twitter” and other associated trademarks for its platform.

U.S. District Judge Colm Conolly ruled that X is likely to succeed in demonstrating that Operation Bluebird’s use of the Twitter name could confuse users and infringe on its trademarks. He rejected the startup’s argument that X had abandoned its rights to the Twitter trademark when Musk rebranded the platform after acquiring it for $44 billion in 2022.

However, Conolly noted that X had indeed abandoned its rights to the word “tweet” and Twitter’s blue bird logo, citing previous statements by Musk in which he said X would “retire all the birds” and would “remove the Twitter logo from the building using blowtorches.”

Operation Bluebird, based in Virginia, petitioned the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office last December to cancel the federal trademarks for “Twitter” owned by X, arguing that the company had abandoned them. The startup stated it intended to use the trademarks for a competing platform and separately filed an application to register its own trademark for the name “Twitter.”

Later that same month, X filed a lawsuit against Bluebird, asserting in its complaint that the “Twitter” trademark remains “alive and well” and “not available for anyone to claim,” and that Operation Bluebird’s attempt to “steal” the name constitutes trademark infringement.

Judge Conolly granted X’s request for a temporary restraining order prohibiting Bluebird from using the verbal trademarks associated with “Twitter” while the case is pending, concluding that X’s claims of trademark infringement are likely to succeed.