In July, Elon Musk rebranded Twitter as X. This move raised a lot of concerns since there were already close to 900 other US trademark registrations under the same name. Recently, X Social Media, a Florida based social media ad agency sued Musk’s X over its trademark. The complaint states that the agency has been using its mark in commerce related activities since 2016.
The complaint, which highlighted that the rebranding was causing ‘serious irreparable harm’, also mentioned that since Twitter got rebranded as X, it led to confusion amongst the consumers as they misunderstood that the agency was somehow in association with Musk’s X.
What has made the situation worse is that Google results of ‘X Social Media’ rank lower in search results as opposed to the microblogging platform that ranks at the top.
The lawsuit also went on to highlight that the trademark application for Musk’s X Corp is indistinguishable from the offerings of the agency which are business data analytics, promotional services, business consulting and information services, business, consumer and market research.
Ahead of the lawsuit, a cease-and-desist letter was sent to the microblogging platform in August. However, Musk’s X refrained from not using the X mark.