Twitter's renaming to X is not an 'abandonment' of trademark rights, X Corp. claims. X Corp. is suing Operation Bluebird, a startup that recently announced plans to reclaim Twitter's trademark for a new social network. In a lawsuit filed Tuesday, the Elon Musk-owned company claims Operation Bluebird is 'brazenly attempting to steal' Twitter's trademarks, arguing that 'Twitter never left and continues to be solely owned by X Corp.'
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Last week, Operation Bluebird filed a lawsuit asking the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to invalidate X Corp.'s ownership of the trademarks 'Twitter' and 'Tweet'. It claimed that X Corp. had 'legally abandoned its rights' to the Twitter trademark with 'no intention of resuming use.' At the same time, Operation Bluebird filed a trademark application for Twitter as part of its plans to launch a new website, called Twitter.new. Now, X Corp. is arguing that the social network's name 'does not constitute an abandonment of trademark rights.'
It reports that users continue to refer to X as 'Twitter' and posts as 'tweets', while some websites still display the Twitter bird icon when linking users to X.
The lawsuit adds that as of December 11, 2025, more than four million users accessed X through the domain 'twitter.com.' X began redirecting traffic from twitter.com to x.com last year.
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Operation Bluebird has already begun accepting reservations for account names on its website Twitter.new, which X Corp. claims the start-up is using to 'create a false association between X Corp. and its 'new' Bluebird product' by using a logo, name, and color palette similar to Twitter's.
'Bluebird has made no secret of the fact that it is trying to capitalize on TWITTER's reputation and recognition,' the lawsuit alleges. 'Although Bluebird could have chosen from virtually unlimited name options (like any of X Corp.'s other competitors), it instead wants to capitalize on the reputation of a trademark that is already worth billions of dollars.'
X Corp. is asking the court to order Operation Bluebird to stop using trademarks related to Twitter's trademark, and to have the USPTO reject and cancel the startup's application for Twitter's trademark. It is also asking the court to award X Corp. 'damages suffered as a result of Bluebird's copyright infringement.'
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Trademark attorney Josh Gerben says that "X Corp. didn't need to file the lawsuit," as the company "could have defended the cancellation application in the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board." "This case shows that while X Corp. may have tried to bury Twitter's trademark, it's clearly not ready to let anyone else dig it up," Gerben says.
