A federal court in Delaware has ruled in a trademark dispute between Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) and Operation Bluebird, a startup aiming to launch a rival social network. The court barred Operation Bluebird from using its original name, “Twitter.now,” siding with X on the core “Twitter” trademark. However, the court found that X had likely abandoned two related trademarks—the word “tweet” and the Twitter bird logo—making them available for use. Consequently, Operation Bluebird rebranded its website as Tweet.app, leveraging the newly available “tweet” name and launching to the public [^1^].

The article suggests that Operation Bluebird’s primary objective may not be to build a unique social network but rather to acquire abandoned Twitter trademarks, which hold significant value. The startup’s founders, including Michael Peroff and Stephen Coates (a former Twitter trademark lawyer), are perceived to have a vested interest in obtaining these trademarks. Despite this, Tweet.app has initiated early testing and attracted over 172,000 users who requested handles before launch, likely capitalizing on the enduring affinity for the “Twitter” brand that the startup can no longer use. The startup charges users $20 to reserve handles, potentially to offset legal expenses [^1^].

This is a summary. Read the original at techcrunch.com.