Judge blocks X rival from using Twitter name, but allows ‘Tweet’ for now
Judge blocks X rival from using Twitter name, but allows ‘Tweet’ for now
法官禁止 X 的竞争对手使用 Twitter 名称，但暂时允许使用“Tweet”
A federal court in Delaware has ruled on a trademark fight between Elon Musk’s X and a startup trying to launch a rival social network. The startup, Operation Bluebird, originally launched under the name Twitter.now, but the court barred it from using that name, siding with X on the core “Twitter” trademark. 特拉华州一家联邦法院就埃隆·马斯克（Elon Musk）旗下的 X 公司与一家试图推出竞争社交网络的初创公司之间的商标纠纷做出了裁决。这家名为“Operation Bluebird”的初创公司最初以“Twitter.now”的名称发布，但法院禁止其使用该名称，并在核心的“Twitter”商标权上支持了 X 公司。
However, the court also found that X had likely abandoned two other, related trademarks: the word “tweet” and the Twitter bird logo, making them available to use. Operation Bluebird has since rebranded its website as Tweet.app, using the freed-up “tweet” name, and launched to the public. 然而，法院同时也认定，X 公司很可能已经放弃了另外两个相关商标：单词“tweet”和 Twitter 的小蓝鸟标志，这意味着这些商标可以被他人使用。此后，Operation Bluebird 将其网站更名为 Tweet.app，启用了被释放出来的“tweet”名称，并向公众开放。
The story of the Virginia-based startup isn’t really about building something unique; it’s about a company trying to get its hands on abandoned trademarks that X relinquished. Even the homepage for the company clearly states its purpose is to go back and pick up what Elon Musk dropped when he renamed the town square as X, and “threw the bird away on his way out,” it says. 这家位于弗吉尼亚州的初创公司的故事并非关于打造独特的产品，而是关于一家试图获取 X 公司所放弃的商标的公司。该公司的主页甚至明确指出，其目的是捡起埃隆·马斯克在将这个“数字广场”更名为 X 时丢弃的东西，并称他“在离开时扔掉了那只鸟”。
The effort is headed up by two lawyers, including founder Michael Peroff, based in Illinois, and Stephen Coates, previously a trademark lawyer at Twitter. Given their legal backgrounds, their assertion that they’re interested in building a new social network seems dubious. It’s more likely they want to acquire Twitter’s trademarks, which have value of their own. 这项工作由两名律师领导，包括位于伊利诺伊州的创始人 Michael Peroff，以及曾担任 Twitter 商标律师的 Stephen Coates。鉴于他们的法律背景，他们声称有兴趣建立一个新的社交网络的说法似乎令人怀疑。更有可能的是，他们想要获取 Twitter 的商标，因为这些商标本身就具有价值。
Still, Tweet.app is at least going through the motions and opening up to users in early testing. The company told TechCrunch that more than 172,000 people requested a handle on the site before launch. This was likely in large part due to the affinity people still have for the brand name “Twitter” — a name the company now can’t use. 尽管如此，Tweet.app 至少正在走流程，并已向用户开放早期测试。该公司告诉 TechCrunch，在发布之前，有超过 17.2 万人申请了该网站的账号。这在很大程度上可能是因为人们对“Twitter”这个品牌名称仍有亲近感——而这正是该公司现在无法使用的名称。
Notably, the startup is charging users $20 to reserve their handle and join the social network, which likely helps cover its legal bills. The court’s decision on the matter is not final, we should note. U.S. District Court Judge Colm F. Connolly issued a split ruling on X’s request for a preliminary injunction that sought to stop Operation Bluebird from using a series of Twitter trademarks that the startup says X had abandoned since its rebrand. 值得注意的是，该初创公司向用户收取 20 美元的费用以预留账号并加入该社交网络，这可能有助于支付其法律费用。需要指出的是，法院对此事的裁决并非最终结果。美国地方法院法官 Colm F. Connolly 对 X 公司提出的初步禁令请求做出了分歧裁决，X 公司曾试图阻止 Operation Bluebird 使用一系列该初创公司声称 X 在品牌重塑后已放弃的 Twitter 商标。
The judge granted X’s motion for a preliminary injunction regarding eight Twitter-related marks, but denied it when it came to the Tweet mark and the Twitter bird logo. In the judge’s opinion, he wrote that Bluebird was “likely to succeed in proving both that X Corp. discontinued the bona fide use of the Tweet mark and Bird logo and that it intends not to resume the use of the marks.” 法官批准了 X 公司关于八个 Twitter 相关商标的初步禁令动议，但在涉及“Tweet”商标和 Twitter 小蓝鸟标志时予以驳回。法官在意见书中写道，Bluebird“很可能成功证明 X 公司已停止对 Tweet 商标和鸟类标志的善意使用，并且无意恢复使用这些商标。”
The case will proceed to determine whether or not X ultimately still retains rights to any of the Twitter marks, given that the company now goes by X in most places. “They kept the word. They let go of the bird, and they let go of the tweet,” wrote Coates, who is president of Operation Bluebird, in an announcement about the rebrand shared via email with TechCrunch. 案件将继续审理，以确定 X 公司最终是否仍保留任何 Twitter 商标的权利，鉴于该公司目前在大多数地方都以 X 自称。“他们保留了这个词，但放走了那只鸟，也放走了 tweet，”Operation Bluebird 总裁 Coates 在通过电子邮件与 TechCrunch 分享的关于品牌重塑的公告中写道。
“A tweet was never a corporation. It’s one person saying something. That word survived three years of a company trying to replace it, because the public declined to stop using it. We think that tells you who it belongs to,” he said. “‘Tweet’从来不是一家公司。它是一个人说的话。这个词在一家公司试图取代它的三年里幸存了下来，因为公众拒绝停止使用它。我们认为这说明了它属于谁，”他说。