Illustration: The Verge
It was bound to happen eventually: a company has filed a lawsuit in federal court against Elon Musk’s X Corp. over its renaming of Twitter (via Reuters). The company in question is X Social Media LLC, an ad agency from Florida that alleges X Corp. is guilty of violating Florida common law because of “unfair competition and trademark and service mark infringement,” as well as the state’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.
X Social Media (hereafter referred to as XSM to make this article easier to write) writes in the complaint that it has used its registered trademark, “X SOCIALMEDIA,” continuously since 2016. XSM claims it has “already suffered loss in revenue that correlates with X Corp.’s rebrand and use of the mark ‘X.’”
It’s unclear how strong X Social Media’s case will ultimately be. Law professor Alexandra Roberts told The Verge earlier this year that the “crowded field” of “X” trademarks could make it hard for any individual X-branded service to enforce a claim against another — whether that’s Musk’s X or a company like X Social Media.
