NEW DELHI: Billionaire Elon Musk has always been partial towards the alphabet ‘X’, right from the first venture of his career to his space firm SpaceX. Musk has now renamed Twitter as X, using a stylized black and white letter X as the new symbol.
However, Elon Musk's obsession to rebrand Twitter as simply 'X' could lead him to face legal complications, as corporations like Meta, Microsoft or other companies may challenge or even file lawsuits over infringement of intellectual property rights.
Companies including Meta (META.O) and Microsoft (MSFT.O) are already known to have intellectual property rights to the letter X.
Moreover, X is used so widely and cited in so many trademarks that it could well turn out to be a candidate for legal challenges, with the company known as Twitter till yesterday could face issues in defending its X brand in the near future.
Trademarks protect things like brand names, logos and slogans that identify where goods are sourced from. Owners of trademarks can claim infringement if any other branding is likely to lead to consumer confusion. Remedies for such legal challenges may range from monetary damages to blocking use.
Since 2003, Microsoft is the owner of an X trademark which is related to communications about its Xbox gaming system. Meta Platforms, which recently introduced its Threads platform as a new Twitter rival – is the owner of a federal trademark registered in 2019 that covers a blue-and-white letter "X" used for several fields that include software as well as social media.
Legal experts say Meta and Microsoft may not sue Musk unless they feel that Twitter's X encroaches on brand equity they had built up in the letter.
Meta itself was the target of intellectual property suits when it changed its name from Facebook. It faces trademark violation suits filed last year by investment firm Metacapital and virtual-reality company MetaX, and had to settle another issue over its new infinity-symbol logo.
Even if Musk succeeds in completing the name change, there are others who could still 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.
He pointed out that the logo is not very distinctive, so the protection might be very limited.
It was reported earlier by Insider that Meta had an X trademark, and lawyer Ed Timberlake tweeted that Microsoft had one as well.
Since Elon Musk took over Twitter, there has been a constant series of changes made within the company.
After Musk decided to replace Twitter's iconic blue bird with an "X" on Sunday, now, when you open Twitter on your device, the familiar bird symbol has been replaced by a black "X". Musk seems to be aiming to entirely erase out the original Twitter logo. However, his ambitious plan to rebrand Twitter as "X" has hit several roadblocks.
The removal of a sign bearing the old name Twitter from the company's San Francisco headquarters was stopped by the police for failure to inform security and owners of the building. The sign is now only half-removed.
It remains to be seen what turns up next.
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