X is so widely used and cited in trademarks that it is a
candidate for legal challenges - and the company formerly known as Twitter
could face its own issues defending its X brand in the future.
"There's a 100 percent chance that Twitter is going to
get sued over this by somebody," said trademark attorney Josh Gerben, who
said he counted nearly 900 active U.S. trademark registrations that already
cover the letter X in a wide range of industries.
Musk renamed social media network Twitter as X on Monday and
unveiled a new logo for the social media platform, a stylized black-and-white
version of the letter.
Owners of trademarks - which protect things like brand
names, logos and slogans that identify sources of goods - can claim
infringement if other branding would cause consumer confusion. Remedies range
from monetary damages to blocking use.
Microsoft since 2003 has owned an X trademark related to
communications about its Xbox video-game system. Meta Platforms - whose Threads
platform is a new Twitter rival - owns a federal trademark registered in 2019
covering a blue-and-white letter "X" for fields including software
and social media.
Meta and Microsoft likely would not sue unless they feel
threatened that Twitter's X encroaches on brand equity they built in the
letter, Gerben said.
The three companies did not respond to requests for comment.
Meta itself drew intellectual property challenges when it
changed its name from Facebook. It faces trademark lawsuits filed last year by
investment firm Metacapital and virtual-reality company MetaX, and settled
another over its new infinity-symbol logo.
And if Musk succeeds in changing the name, others still
could claim 'X' for themselves.
"Given the difficulty in protecting a single letter,
especially one as popular commercially as 'X', Twitter's protection is likely
to be confined to very similar graphics to their X logo," said Douglas
Masters, a trademark attorney at law firm Loeb & Loeb.
"The logo does not have much distinctive about it, so
the protection will be very narrow."
Insider reported earlier that Meta had an X trademark, and
lawyer Ed Timberlake tweeted that Microsoft had one as well. © Reuters