While Elon Musk is busy rebranding the social media platform Twitter to X, the deal could soon face legal hurdles as several companies, including tech giants Meta and Microsoft, hold intellectual property rights to the same letter.X, as a single alphabet that is widely used in company names across industries, is widely cited in trademark infringement challenges. According to several trademark law experts, X Corp – which was formerly known as Twitter – will likely face legal issues in defending its X brand in the future.“Theres a 100 percent chance that Twitter is going to get sued over this by somebody,” trademark attorney Josh Gerben said, adding that he has counted nearly 900 active US trademark registrations that already cover the letter X in a variety of manners across a wide range of industries.Elon Musk has been in the process of rebranding Twitter into X – a hypothetical everything app akin to Chinas WeChat. He unveiled the new name on Monday along with a stylized black-and-white X logo.Microsoft, Meta already own X trademarkWhile hundreds of companies own trademarks related to the letter X, Microsoft and Meta are two tech giants who could likely mount a legal challenge to Twitters rebranding if they feel that the move encroaches on brand equity they built in the letter, as per Gerben.Microsoft has owned a trademark on X since 2003, which is related to communications about its Xbox gaming system. Meta – which has recently locked horns against Twitter regarding its rival Threads platform – also owns a federal trademark related to X since 2019, which covers the blue-and-white letter X for fields including software and social media.A copy of Microsofts trademark was shared by lawyer Ed Timberlake on his Twitter handle.And the icing on the cake: Microsoft owns a trademark for X. So Musk has destroyed a loved and strong brand, for potential years of litigation, and potentially no brand. https://t.co/OztqYGeIMK— Andres Guadamuz (@technollama) July 24, 2023However, even if Twitter succeeds in rebranding itself as X, other companies could claim the alphabet in the future. “Given the difficulty in protecting a single letter, especially one as popular commercially as X, Twitters protection is likely to be confined to very similar graphics to their X logo,” Douglas Masters, a trademark attorney at law firm Loeb & Loeb, told news agency Reuters.“The logo does not have much distinctive about it, so the protection will be very narrow.”
