X Corp, formerly known as Twitter is being sued by a Florida based advertisement agency, X Social Media LLC for the violation of Florida common law due to “unfair competition and trademark service mark infringement”.1 X Social Media, filed a trade mark “X Social Media” on 17 January 2018 and it was officially registered on 04 September 2018.2 The company has claimed to have invested over $2 million in building the brand and reaching consumers.1 They claim to have already suffered revenue losses correlating to when Twitter rebranded to X Corp and started using the X mark.
X Corp could have faced even more lawsuits against it as Meta (Facebook) had applied for the registration of their own “X” logo (depicted below).2 Meta filed the application on 25 May 2017 with the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).3 However, in April 2019, the mark was officially abandoned.3
As a reminder, according to the South Africa’s Trade Marks Act No. 194 of 1993, a trade mark is considered to be registrable if it is “capable of distinguishing the goods or services of a person in respect of which it is registered or proposed to be registered from the goods or services of another person either generally or, where the trade mark is registered or proposed to be registered subject to limitations, in relation to use within those limitations.”4 A mark that is, as a result of the manner in which it has been used, would be likely to cause deception or confusion is not considered as a registrable mark.4
It will be interesting to see how this matter unfolds and whether or not X will remain X Corp or will be forced to rebrand.
References:
- https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/musk-x-twitter-sued-social-network-b2422811.html
- https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/meta-trademark-x-logo-may-pose-legal-issues-twitter-musk-company-rebranding
- https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4804:28457j.2.1
- https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201409/act194of1993.pdf
