US Court Bars X Rival From Using Twitter Name for Now

    A federal court in the US state of Delaware has issued its preliminary ruling in a trademark dispute between X and Operation Bluebird, which wants to create a rival social network. The court barred the startup from using the Twitter name. However, the judge accepted that the word “tweet” and Twitter's bird logo may have been abandoned by X. The startup's use of these 2 marks has therefore not been halted for now.    The Virginia-based startup initially operated under the name Twitter.now. Following the ban, the website was renamed Tweet.app, and the platform was opened to the public. According to the company, the number of people who applied to claim a username on the platform before its launch exceeded 172,000. The fee to join was set at 20 dollars (approximately 34 manat). This amount also includes the reservation of a username.    X had asked the court to temporarily stop the rival startup from using all Twitter-related marks. Judge Colm F. Connolly granted the request concerning 8 trademarks. The request regarding the “Tweet” mark and the bird logo was denied. In the judge's view, the startup may be able to prove that X genuinely stopped using these 2 marks and does not intend to use them again in the future.    This ruling is not final, and the court proceedings will continue. The next stage will examine whether the company retained its rights to the old marks after replacing the Twitter name with X. For now, the startup cannot use the Twitter name. However, it can use the word “tweet” and the bird logo. Whether this permission will become permanent will be known after the final ruling.    The project's founder is Michael Peroff, an attorney who works in Illinois. The team also includes Stephen Coates, who previously served as Twitter's trademark attorney. He is currently the president of Operation Bluebird. The startup openly says it wants to bring back the marks that were retired when the Twitter name was replaced with X. Tweet.app is currently accepting users in an initial testing phase.