A federal court in Delaware has issued a split ruling in a trademark dispute between Elon Musk's X and a startup, Operation Bluebird. The court temporarily barred Operation Bluebird from using the "Twitter" name for its rival social network, siding with X on the core "Twitter" trademark.
However, the court also determined that X had likely abandoned the word "tweet" and the Twitter bird logo. This decision has allowed Operation Bluebird to rebrand its website as Tweet.app, utilising the "tweet" name, and launch to the public.
U.S. District Court Judge Colm F. Connolly granted X's request for a preliminary injunction regarding eight Twitter-related marks, but denied it concerning the "Tweet" mark and the Twitter bird logo. The judge's opinion stated that Operation Bluebird was "likely to succeed in proving both that X Corp. discontinued the bona fide use of the Tweet mark and Bird logo and that it intends not to resume the use of the marks."
Operation Bluebird, which is charging users $20 to reserve a handle and join the network, reportedly had over 172,000 people request a handle before its launch. The case will continue to determine X's ultimate rights to any of the Twitter marks.