In what has become the most contentious rebranding move of the year triggering a trademark showdown, Twitter’s transformation into ‘X’ is proving to be a relentless headache for the social media giant’s CEO.
Unexpectedly, the path to this new identity has encountered a formidable obstacle – the existence of numerous businesses bearing the name ‘X,’ with one company, X Social Media, at the forefront of the controversy.
Trademark showdown
X Social Media, a firm claiming to have exclusively and continuously used its branding since 2018, has taken its grievances to the US Patent and Trademark Office.
Their complaint alleges that Twitter’s rebranding has inflicted “serious irreparable harm” and resulted in a loss of revenue. One significant blow comes in the form of plummeting Google search rankings, a detrimental consequence of Twitter’s name change.
At first glance, the two ‘X’ logos appear to have little in common. Twitter’s ‘X’ logo, curated through a crowdsourcing initiative led by Elon Musk, showcases a generic Unicode character that may prove challenging to trademark.
In contrast, X Social Media’s logo features a stick figure holding the scales of justice, a somewhat perplexing choice for a social media company, but one that can be traced back to its origins in mass tort litigation.
X rebrand in question
Despite the visual disparities, X Social Media’s legal representatives, led by trademark attorney Josh Gerben, argue that both entities operate within the same business segment. Both the ‘X’ from Twitter and X Social Media fall under categories such as “social media, business data, promotion and advertising, business consulting, market research services, and advertising services.”
Ironically, this trademark showdown emerges just weeks after an amateur football team accused another of Elon Musk’s ventures, SpaceX, of appropriating its logo design.
With legal battles now brewing on multiple fronts, the ‘X’ rebranding saga seems far from reaching a resolution, leaving Twitter’s CEO to grapple with an unforeseen wave of challenges.
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