Billionaire Elon Musk's decision to rebrand Twitter as X could be complicated legally: companies including Meta and Microsoft already have intellectual property rights to the same letter.
important for anybody following this topic to also know that “hundreds of trademarks” can sometimes just mean that there’s a few trademarks in each class. Trademarks in the US are divided into classes, so that two companies that do different things can still be named the same or similar.
The article still has a point, in that similar software companies like Meta and Microsoft have trademarks for “X,” but if your PVC pipe company is called X, you might not have a good case against Twitter because who is getting confused between PVC pipes and social media?
“Your honor, let the record state that there is a common saying to the effect that “the internet is a series of tubes”. Now, PVC pipes are also a variety of tube. Therefore…”
important for anybody following this topic to also know that “hundreds of trademarks” can sometimes just mean that there’s a few trademarks in each class. Trademarks in the US are divided into classes, so that two companies that do different things can still be named the same or similar.
The article still has a point, in that similar software companies like Meta and Microsoft have trademarks for “X,” but if your PVC pipe company is called X, you might not have a good case against Twitter because who is getting confused between PVC pipes and social media?
“Your honor, let the record state that there is a common saying to the effect that “the internet is a series of tubes”. Now, PVC pipes are also a variety of tube. Therefore…”