X sues challenger ‘Operation Bluebird’ for trying to ‘steal’ Twitter branding

Will Twitter’s blue bird ever fly again? Not if X can help it.

The company owned by Elon Musk, which bought the Twitter brand and social media platform in 2022, filed a countersuit against a new start-up for “brazenly attempting to steal the world-famous TWITTER brand”.

The legal riposte comes a week after a Virginia-based startup called “Operation Bluebird” filed a petition with the United States Patent and Trademark Office to cancel X’s trademark of the words “Twitter” and “Tweet”.

Operation Bluebird’s petition claimed that X Corp. had legally abandoned the brand after overhauling the website and renaming it X in 2023.

“The TWITTER and TWEET brands have been eradicated from X Corp.’s products, services, and marketing, effectively abandoning the storied brand, with no intention to resume use of the mark,” the petition states. “The TWITTER bird was grounded.”

According to X Corp.’s countersuit, filed on Tuesday, the company said it never gave up the Twitter name and logo, despite the rebrand.

“...even as X Corp. moves the Twitter platform towards its predominant X brand, X Corp.’s use of the TWITTER Marks continues on,” the lawsuit states. “Simply put, a rebrand is not an abandonment of trademark rights.”

The filing states that millions of people still access the X platform through the Twitter.com domain and use the terms “Twitter” and “Tweet” when referring to the platform and its posts.

X is asking the court to order Operation Bluebird to stop using any trademarks related to the Twitter brand, and for the petition to be dismissed by the US Patent Office. The company also requested damages related to Operation Bluebird’s copyright infringement, as well as payment of its legal fees.

X also updated its Terms of Service to include mentions of its ownership of the Twitter name and trademarks, writing: “Nothing in the Terms gives you a right to use the X name or Twitter name or any of the X or Twitter trademarks, logos, domain names, other distinctive brand features, and other proprietary rights, and you may not do so without our express written consent.”

Operation Bluebird, which is partly led by former Twitter head trademark counsel Stephen Coates, has already created a new prototype site – Twitter.new – using a colour scheme and bird logo that resembles Twitter’s old branding.

The site claims that “the public square is broken” and “we are bringing it back”. At the time of publication, more than 146,000 people had requested handles for the future platform, according to the site.

X Corp. called this a “calculated, bad-faith scheme” to confuse users and cause "irreparable harm” to its business, according to the lawsuit.

“Despite Bluebird’s purported plan, it cannot bring Twitter ‘back’ – Twitter never left and continues to be exclusively owned by X Corp.,” the lawsuit states.