When technology entrepreneur Elon Musk announced that the social network he purchased for $44 billion in November 2022 would be re-branded as “X,” marketing experts were puzzled as to why he would do away with brand recognition that has been solidly established for more than a decade. Notwithstanding this puzzling decision to rename Twitter, there is a strong chance Musk will face the kind of challenges that a trademark attorney in Chicago routinely helps clients with.
Part of the reason Musk wants Twitter to be known as X from now on is that he owns the X.com top-level domain, which he previously used for the first bank in the United States to fully operate online and without physical branches. It makes sense to redirect Twitter to X.com; moreover, Musk wants to transform the social network into a super app such as WeChat in China, which offers functionality that ranges from messaging to internet gaming and from e-commerce to banking. This is where the legal problems could begin for Musk because the X trademark has already been granted to companies such as Facebook for social media and Microsoft for video gaming.
In the United States, the intellectual property status of a brand is determined through the Patent and Trademark Office. Let’s say you want to operate an Illinois business under the name “Twitter Pizza Delivery;” in this example, Musk could retain a trademark attorney in Chicago to sue you for intellectual property infringement, and he would be protecting his brand. To learn more about intellectual property protection and avoid lawsuits, visit Jayaram Law today.
