When Elon Musk bought Twitter in 2022 only to kill the brand in 2023, he probably didn’t expect someone would try to bring it back from the dead.
But a small Virginia startup called Operation Bluebird just asked the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to cancel X Corp’s Twitter trademarks—so they can use the name themselves for a rival platform at twitter.new.
“The public square is broken, but we still believe in it. One brand tried to fix it [and] then burned it all down. We are bringing it back—this time with trust. Welcome to Twitter.new. Make the first move,” the site’s banner reads.
Operation Bluebird’s petition argues that Musk legally abandoned the Twitter trademark when he stopped using it commercially. And under U.S. trademark law, if you don’t use it, you lose it.
X does not respond to press requests for comment.
According to U.S. trademark law (15 U.S.C. § 1127), “A mark shall be deemed to be ‘abandoned’ (…) when its use has been discontinued with intent not to resume such use.”
“Intent not to resume may be inferred from circumstances. Nonuse for 3 consecutive years shall be prima facie evidence of abandonment.”
Musk killed Twitter to rebrand it into X more than 3 years ago.
The guy leading this charge? Stephen Jadie Coates, who was Twitter’s Associate Director at Trademarks, Domain Names and Marketing before Musk bought the place. He knows exactly what he’s doing.
“X legally abandoned the TWITTER mark,” Coates said in a statement to Reuters. X Corp erased Twitter from products, services, and marketing. The blue bird logo vanished. The platform migrated from twitter.com to x.com. Even Musk himself declared in 2023 that the company would “bid adieu to the Twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds.”
The final blow came on May 17, 2024, when X completed the full integration from Twitter.com to X.com. Operation Bluebird argues this proves X Corp has no intention of ever using the Twitter name again.
X Corp technically renewed the Twitter trademark registration in 2023, but that renewal was approved while the company was actively eliminating the brand. It’s like renewing your gym membership while demolishing the gym. Under U.S. trademark law, three years of non-use creates a presumption of abandonment. And the law is clear about how specific the term is:
“Use” of a mark means the bona fide use of such mark made in the ordinary course of trade, and not made merely to reserve a right in a mark.”
Josh Gerben, an intellectual property lawyer watching the case, told Reuters that X would face serious obstacles defending trademarks it no longer uses. But he noted something important: Even if Operation Bluebird wins the cancellation, X could still sue them for trademark infringement.
Why? Because of something called “residual goodwill.” When you ask someone “what was Twitter?” Most people still associate it with what’s now X Corp. That association is a legal weapon, even without active trademark registrations.
But litigation is expensive. Really expensive. And that creates the billion-dollar question at the heart of this case: Will Elon Musk spend millions defending a brand he deliberately threw in the trash?
You may think a couple million dollars would be spare change for the richest man in the world, but Operation Bluebird is betting the answer is no. Their twitter.new website already lets people reserve usernames. The pitch is nostalgic: rebuild “the public square” with the trust that X lost. Bring back the blue bird, the old vibe.
Whether this works depends on what Musk does next. X Corp has until early February to file a response to the trademark cancellation petition. If Musk fights, it could cost millions in legal fees to protect a brand he publicly killed. If he doesn’t, someone else gets to resurrect one of the most recognizable names in tech history.
The blue bird might fly again. Just not with Musk.
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