A US judge has blocked a start-up from using the Twitter name in its planned rival to Elon Musk’s X, while allowing it to use the word “tweet” and the former Twitter bird logo for now.
Operation Bluebird, which began under the name Twitter.now, launched its public-facing website as Tweet.app after a split ruling by the US District Court in Delaware. The decision followed a trademark dispute brought by X over the start-up’s use of marks associated with the social media platform.
Judge Colm F Connolly granted X a preliminary injunction covering eight Twitter-related trademarks, including the central “Twitter” mark. However, he rejected the request in relation to the “tweet” trademark and the blue bird logo.
The ruling is not a final decision on ownership. The case will continue with the court examining whether X retained rights to the marks after Musk rebranded Twitter as X and withdrew much of the old branding.
In his opinion, Judge Connolly said Operation Bluebird was “likely to succeed in proving both that X Corp. discontinued the bona fide use of the Tweet mark and Bird logo and that it intends not to resume the use of the marks”.
The start-up’s stated purpose is to reclaim branding it believes X abandoned during the rebrand. Its website says Musk “threw the bird away on his way out” after renaming the platform.
Operation Bluebird is led by founder Michael Peroff and Stephen Coates, a former trademark lawyer at Twitter. Coates, now the company’s president, said the decision supported its position that X had retained the Twitter name but abandoned the bird and “tweet” marks.
“They kept the word. They let go of the bird, and they let go of the tweet,” he said in a statement about the rebrand.
Tweet.app has opened to users in an early testing phase. The company said more than 172,000 people had requested a handle before launch, although it cannot use the Twitter name itself.
Users are being charged $20 to reserve a handle and join the service, a fee that comes as the company faces an ongoing legal battle with X.
