Court Rules TWEET and Bird Logo Are Likely Abandoned, But X Keeps TWITTER Mark
“Tweet” and the bird logo apparently enter the public domain
A Delaware court ruled on a preliminary injunction that X Corp. likely abandoned the TWEET trademark and the bird logo, citing their absence from X's app listing and website, plus Musk's public repudiation. However, the court found X still uses the TWITTER mark through "formerly known as" references in its App Store listing, which it deemed bona fide use. The ruling frees TWEET and the bird logo for public use, though the TWITTER mark remains under X's control for now.
Musk’s pronouncements and X Corp.’s rebranding of the Twitter platform as X provide compelling evidence that X Corp. harbors an intent not to resume use of the Tweet mark and Bird logo.
- blfr
The core reason to enforce trademarks is not to fluff the corporation that holds it but to let the public be confident in the name. So the trademark should hold for as long as a reasonable person can be confused by the new Twitter regardless of people's dislike towards Elon.
I may be biased because I still go to Twitter via twitter.com.
- weinzierl
Probably not many do remember, but before this logo Twitter had a different bird logo until the company was already quite big.
If I remember correctly this logo was allegedly bought from a royalty free image platform and Twitter had no exclusive rights to it. Also there was a little outcry that the original artist just received the royalty free platform usual ridiculously small one time payment.
EDIT: The one I remember is the second one in the timeline image from the following (unfortunately ad infested) article, so apparently it was not the first one they had.
https://www.afaqs.com/news/digital/has-musk-gone-too-far-wit...
- MatthewWilkes
Is it accurate to describe this as the public domain? I would expect that the bird logo still enjoys copyright protection, independent from its status as a trademark.
- HelloUsername
Related:
"Twitter Is Back at Twitter.now" 26.aug.2026 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49455791 19 comments
"New Twitter rebrands to Tweet.app after court's double-edged ruling" 06.sep.2026 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49581979
"Twitter" 10.dec.2025 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46223543 11 comments
"Former Twitter Attorney Files for 'Twitter' Trademark" 09.dec.2025 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46208672 13 comments
"US startup seeks to reclaim Twitter trademarks 'abandoned' by Musk's X" 09.dec.2025 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46203468
- Animats
Trademarks are use it or lose it. OLDSMOBILE, for example, is a cancelled General Motors trademark for automobiles.[1] No cars sold, no trademark.
- nunobrito
It always made more sense to call these tiny texts as "tweets" rather than "toots" (mastodon) or "status update" (generic) so it would be good having the right to use that term as public domain.
There have been worse names for this kind of updates in the past. At some point in time was common to "finger" someone online: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finger_(protocol)
- thih9
Looks like there is now a tweet.new (not the same as twitter.com ) run by Project Bluebird (not the same as Bluesky). Very confusing.
The "Trust Dial" seems a new concept to be fair. Then again, it's just a concept and possibly AI generated like the rest of the page. I wonder what trust score would the website assign to itself at that point.
- Rygian
Decision from the judge "Issuance of the injunction precluding Bluebird's use of the Twitter-formative marks is contingent on X Corp.'s posting of a $500,000 bond."
Both X Corp. and Bluebird have asked to go to court on Nov 2027.