Elon Musk's decision to rebrand Twitter as "X" could potentially face complex legal challenges due to existing intellectual property rights held by companies like Meta and Microsoft, who also have claims to the same letter.
The letter "X" is extensively used and referenced in trademarks, making it susceptible to legal disputes. The company formerly known as Twitter might encounter difficulties defending its "X" brand in the future.
Trademark attorney Josh Gerben predicts that Twitter is highly likely to be sued over this matter. He identified almost 900 active U.S. trademark registrations that already cover the letter "X" across various industries.
On Monday, Musk revealed the new name and logo for the social media platform, a stylized black-and-white version of the letter "X."
When companies own trademarks, which protect brand names, logos, and slogans that identify the origin of goods, they can claim infringement if other branding leads to consumer confusion. Potential remedies range from monetary damages to blocking the usage of the conflicting brand.
Microsoft has owned an "X" trademark related to communications about its Xbox video-game system since 2003. Meta Platforms, the company behind the Threads platform, which competes with Twitter, holds a federal trademark registered in 2019 covering a blue-and-white letter "X" for fields including software and social media.
Gerben suggests that Meta and Microsoft may not sue Twitter unless they feel that Twitter's "X" infringes upon the brand equity they have established with the letter.
All three companies mentioned in the article did not provide comments on the matter.
Meta itself faced intellectual property challenges when it changed its name from Facebook. The company was involved in trademark lawsuits filed by investment firm Metacapital and virtual-reality company MetaX last year, and they settled another lawsuit over their new infinity-symbol logo.
Even if Musk successfully changes the name to "X," others could still lay claim to the letter for themselves.
Due to the difficulty in protecting a single letter, particularly one as widely used commercially as "X," Twitter's protection is likely to be limited to very similar graphics to their "X" logo, according to trademark attorney Douglas Masters from the law firm Loeb & Loeb.
The logo itself lacks distinctiveness, resulting in narrow protection for Twitter's use of the letter "X."
Earlier reports indicated that Meta had an "X" trademark, and lawyer Ed Timberlake tweeted about Microsoft having one as well.
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