“There’s a 100% chance that Twitter is going to get sued over this by somebody,” said trademark attorney Josh Gerben. He identified nearly 900 active US trademark registrations that already cover the letter X across various industries. Musk renamed the social media network Twitter as X on Monday and unveiled a new logo, a stylized black-and-white version of the letter.
Trademark owners have the right to claim infringement if other branding causes consumer confusion. Remedies for infringement range from monetary damages to blocking the use of the branding.
Since 2003, Microsoft has owned an X trademark related to communications about its Xbox video-game system. Meta Platforms, the owner of a new Twitter rival called Threads, holds a federal trademark registered in 2019 covering a blue-and-white letter X for software and social media among other fields. Meta and Microsoft are likely to take legal action if they feel that Twitter’s X brand encroaches on the brand equity they have built around the letter.
Meta itself faced intellectual property challenges when it changed its name from Facebook. It has been involved in trademark lawsuits filed by investment firm Metacapital and virtual-reality company MetaX. Meta settled another lawsuit over its new infinity-symbol logo.
Even if Musk successfully changes the name, others may still claim the letter X for their own. “Given the difficulty in protecting a single letter, Twitter’s protection is likely to be confined to very similar graphics to their X logo,” said trademark attorney Douglas Masters. He added that the logo has little distinctive features, resulting in narrow protection for Twitter.