Musk wins court order to block use of “Twitter,” but not “tweet” and bird logo

马斯克赢得法院禁令：禁止他人使用“Twitter”名称，但“tweet”和鸟类图标不受保护

On Thursday, Elon Musk’s X won a court order blocking Operation Bluebird from launching a new app taking over the Twitter name. In his opinion, Chief Judge Colm Connolly explained that Operation Bluebird was unlikely to prove that X had entirely abandoned the Twitter name. Therefore, X was likely to succeed on trademark infringement and dilution claims tied to the platform’s former name.

周四，埃隆·马斯克旗下的 X 公司赢得了一项法院禁令，阻止 Operation Bluebird 公司推出一款占用“Twitter”名称的新应用。首席法官科尔姆·康诺利（Colm Connolly）在裁决意见书中解释称，Operation Bluebird 不太可能证明 X 公司已经完全放弃了“Twitter”这一名称。因此，X 公司在针对该平台原名称的商标侵权和淡化诉讼中胜算较大。

Most compellingly, X argued that it still uses the Twitter name in the current listing for the X app in Apple’s App Store. In the first sentence of that listing, written in the same size font as the rest of the text, a single clause clinched the early court win for X by stating, “Welcome to X (formerly known as Twitter).” X’s legal director, Naser Baseer, testified that X “deliberately” added that clause “to ensure that people who were searching for the Twitter app within the App Store, as well as people who were searching for the Twitter app outside of the App Store, would find the Apple app link and have an understanding that this is one and the same app, same platform,” Connolly said.

最令人信服的是，X 公司辩称其在苹果 App Store 的 X 应用当前列表中仍在使用“Twitter”这一名称。在该列表的第一句话中，与正文同等字号的一处从句为 X 公司赢得了初步胜诉，文中写道：“欢迎来到 X（前身为 Twitter）。”康诺利法官表示，X 公司的法律总监纳赛尔·巴希尔（Naser Baseer）作证称，X 公司“特意”添加了该从句，“以确保在 App Store 内外搜索 Twitter 应用的用户都能找到苹果应用的链接，并理解这是同一个应用、同一个平台。”

Additionally, survey evidence showed that people still think Twitter’s a “famous” brand, and X showed that despite wiping the name from its platform, the company still “takes advantage” of the “goodwill” that the “commercially strong” initial brand maintains by associating X with Twitter in the App Store, Connolly wrote. “By virtue of the parenthetical, the listing is telling customers that what they knew as Twitter is now X and can be accessed by downloading the X app from the Apple App Store,” Connolly said. It may also strengthen X’s case that twitter.com redirects to x.com, but Connolly did not yet have to weigh that question. Because X could be irreparably harmed if Operation Bluebird benefits from using the Twitter name at X’s expense, Operation Bluebird will be blocked from using the name until litigation is resolved, Connolly ruled.

此外，康诺利写道，调查证据显示人们仍认为 Twitter 是一个“著名”品牌。X 公司证明，尽管已从其平台上抹去了该名称，但通过在 App Store 中将 X 与 Twitter 关联，公司仍在“利用”这一“商业实力雄厚”的初始品牌所维持的“商誉”。康诺利说：“凭借括号中的说明，该列表告诉客户，他们所熟知的 Twitter 现在就是 X，可以通过从苹果 App Store 下载 X 应用来访问。”此外，twitter.com 重定向至 x.com 可能也会加强 X 公司的立场，但康诺利尚未对此问题进行权衡。康诺利裁定，如果 Operation Bluebird 以牺牲 X 公司的利益为代价从使用“Twitter”名称中获益，X 公司可能会遭受无法弥补的损害，因此在诉讼解决之前，禁止 Operation Bluebird 使用该名称。

X can’t block bird logo, “tweet” uses

X 公司无法阻止“tweet”和鸟类图标的使用

However, X was not as successful in its claims that it had not abandoned other Twitter marks, including uses of the term “tweet” and the bird logo. Musk’s public claims that “soon we shall bid adieu to the Twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds” and “we’re cutting the Twitter logo off the building with blow torches” provided “compelling evidence that X Corp. harbors an intent not to resume use of the Tweet mark and Bird logo,” the judge found. Therefore, Operation Bluebird is likely to prove that X abandoned those trademarks.

然而，X 公司在声称其并未放弃其他 Twitter 商标（包括“tweet”一词和鸟类图标的使用）的诉求上并不那么成功。法官认为，马斯克曾公开宣称“很快我们将告别 Twitter 品牌，并逐渐告别所有的鸟儿”以及“我们正在用喷灯切掉大楼上的 Twitter 标志”，这些言论提供了“令人信服的证据，表明 X 公司无意恢复使用 Tweet 商标和鸟类图标”。因此，Operation Bluebird 很可能证明 X 公司已经放弃了这些商标。

X seemingly tried every tactic under the sun to avoid that outcome. It dug up 12 undated webpages that still featured the bird logo or mentioned the word tweet. All the pages appeared to have been created under prior ownership, and X did not produce evidence showing that they had been updated since Musk took over the platform. Baseer tried to claim that X left those pages up intentionally, but he couldn’t identify any time a deliberate choice was made to leave up a legacy webpage during X’s messy rebranding. Ultimately, the judge decided that X was using old webpages that were inadvertently missed during the rebrand to keep claims to the tweet mark and the bird logo alive.

X 公司似乎尝试了各种策略来避免这一结果。它找出了 12 个未注明日期的网页，这些网页仍带有鸟类图标或提到了“tweet”一词。所有这些页面似乎都是在易主前创建的，且 X 公司未能提供证据表明这些页面在马斯克接管平台后曾进行过更新。巴希尔试图声称 X 公司是有意保留这些页面的，但他无法指出在 X 公司混乱的品牌重塑过程中，曾有任何时刻做出过保留旧网页的刻意决定。最终，法官认定 X 公司只是利用了在品牌重塑过程中无意遗漏的旧网页，试图维持对“tweet”商标和鸟类图标的权利主张。

“The cited web pages are in short remnants of prior use of the Tweet mark and the Bird logo, not evidence that X Corp. is currently engaged in the bona fide use of those marks,” Connolly decided. The same logic applies to legacy social media accounts X left up on the platform, including the deactivated account, @twitter, which tells people to “follow @x for updates.” “These inactive accounts, too, are remnants of prior use,” Connolly said, and the old posts from them are also “a relic of the past.”

康诺利裁定：“所引用的网页简而言之是此前使用 Tweet 商标和鸟类图标的残余，而非 X 公司目前正在真诚使用这些商标的证据。”同样的逻辑也适用于 X 公司留在平台上的旧社交媒体账号，包括已停用的 @twitter 账号，该账号提示人们“关注 @x 以获取更新”。康诺利说：“这些不活跃的账号同样是此前使用的残余，而它们发布的旧帖子也只是‘过去的遗迹’。”

Perhaps least convincingly, Baseer shared screenshots showing that the legacy Twitter app was still installed on a device belonging to X’s outside counsel. While testifying, Baseer claimed that “more than 200,000 users maintain the legacy app on their phones,” but Connolly said that X showed no evidence substantiating that claim or suggesting that X still maintains the legacy app. When asked when was the last time that X sent a push update to a user’s device with legacy Twitter installed, Baseer responded, “I don’t know what a push update is,” Connolly said.

最缺乏说服力的一点是，巴希尔分享了截图，显示 X 公司外部法律顾问的设备上仍安装着旧版 Twitter 应用。在作证时，巴希尔声称“有超过 20 万用户在手机上保留了旧版应用”，但康诺利表示，X 公司没有提供任何证据来证实这一说法，也没有迹象表明 X 公司仍在维护该旧版应用。当被问及 X 公司最后一次向安装了旧版 Twitter 的用户设备发送推送更新是什么时候时，巴希尔回答说“我不知道什么是推送更新”，康诺利记录道。

One of the only other lines of logic that X pursued in trying to get a preliminary injunction to block use of “tweet” and “confusingly similar” bird logos were arguments that X still uses Twitter marks in communications with vendors. But X again had scarce evidence to back its claims that its “entire vendor onboarding process remains Twitter-branded.” Not impressing the judge, X shared a single email “from an unknown sender to an unknown recipient” that invited a vendor to register to become a Twitter supplier in October 2025. Nowhere in the body of the email does the bird logo appear; however, the email included attachments that still used the bird logo.

X 公司在试图获得初步禁令以阻止他人使用“tweet”和“令人混淆的相似”鸟类图标时，采取的另一条逻辑是辩称其在与供应商的沟通中仍在使用 Twitter 商标。但 X 公司再次缺乏证据来支持其“整个供应商入驻流程仍保留 Twitter 品牌”的说法。X 公司分享了一封“来自未知发件人发给未知收件人”的电子邮件，邀请供应商在 2025 年 10 月注册成为 Twitter 供应商，但这并未给法官留下深刻印象。邮件正文中并未出现鸟类图标，但邮件附件中仍使用了该图标。

This email was not enough to save X from claims that it had abandoned the bird logo. Connolly said that X redacted so much information that it was impossible to tell who the vendor was or if they were based in the US, which was necessary for the claim to survive. Further, Baseer could not identify at a hearing even generally which “types of vendors such emails are sent to,” Connolly said. “Even if there were credible evidence that someone from X Corp. actually sent the email within the United States in October 2025, nothing in the email or anywhere else in the record suggests that X Corp. was using the email to advertise or sell X Corp.’ s services,” Connolly wrote. “The purpose of the email and attachments was to solicit the services of potential vendors, not to promote or identify X Corp.’ s services. The email is therefore not evidence of X Corp.’s bona fide use of any of the Twitter Marks.”

这封邮件不足以让 X 公司免于被指控放弃了鸟类图标。康诺利表示，X 公司涂黑了太多信息，以至于无法判断供应商是谁，也无法确定他们是否位于美国，而这对于维持该项主张至关重要。此外，康诺利指出，巴希尔在听证会上甚至无法大致说明“此类邮件是发送给哪类供应商的”。康诺利写道：“即使有可信证据表明 X 公司的某人在 2025 年 10 月于美国境内发送了该邮件，邮件或记录中的任何其他内容也无法表明 X 公司是在利用该邮件来宣传或销售其服务。邮件及其附件的目的是招募潜在供应商的服务，而非推广或标识 X 公司的服务。因此，该邮件不能作为 X 公司真诚使用任何 Twitter 商标的证据。”