“Tweet” and the bird logo apparently enter the public domain — at least for now. A federal court ruled that X Corp. has likely abandoned both marks, but it held onto the TWITTER trademark.
The ruling came in X Corp. v. Project Bluebird Inc., a lawsuit over whether X abandoned its old branding. Project Bluebird, a social media service that previously operated as “twitter.new,” renamed itself to tweet.app immediately after the decision. The case remains unresolved on the merits.
The App Store listing that saved TWITTER
The court said X hasn’t abandoned the TWITTER marks, citing the X app’s listing on the Apple App Store. That listing reads: “Welcome to X (formerly known as Twitter), your trusted digital town square where conversations unfold in real time, and the world connects through breaking news, live events, podcasts, and everything in between.”
The court called the listing “evidence of bona fide use of the Twitter-formative marks.” It reasoned that the parenthetical tells customers that what they knew as Twitter is now X, and that residual goodwill from the old brand still helps identify the platform.
Why TWEET and the Bird Logo lost
The court found the TWEET trademark and the Bird Logo are likely abandoned. Neither appears in the X app’s App Store listing, and X Corp. conceded at an April hearing that both are absent from x.com’s home page.
Some of X’s evidence was defective, the court said, referencing only TWITTER rather than the other marks, or lacking dates. The court described some social media account postings as relics of the past.
Musk’s pronouncements
The court summarized: “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.”
This was a preliminary injunction ruling, not a final decision. Still, the analysis suggests the TWEET term and the Bird Logo are free from X’s control. Project Bluebird already filed ITU applications for TWITTER and TWEET in 2025, and it may try to repropertize the marks.
What this means
If the ruling holds, “we can tweet all we want and associate ourselves with the bird logo as we see fit,” the legal commentator analyzing the ruling wrote.
The TWITTER mark may follow. The legal commentator predicted that mark will also enter the public domain soon enough, even if it should be there already.
The commentator was blunt about the old brand’s standing: “At this point I’m still amaze any residual goodwill still exists towards X/Twitter. It’s all badwill to me.”
Key facts
- Case: X Corp. v. Project Bluebird Inc., 2026 WL 2606728 (D. Del. Sept. 3, 2026)
- Project Bluebird renamed from “twitter.new” to tweet.app after the ruling
- ITU applications for TWITTER and TWEET filed in 2025
- Ruling: preliminary injunction stage, not final merits
Marks compared
| Mark | Status | Key evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Not abandoned | App Store listing: “formerly known as Twitter” | |
| TWEET | Likely abandoned | Absent from App Store and x.com |
| Bird Logo | Likely abandoned | Absent from App Store and x.com |
The decision is a preliminary one, so the final word is yet to come.
Source: blog.ericgoldman.org
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