Legal Dispute Looms Over Twitter’s Adoption of Elon Musk’s X Logo
The rebranding process has concluded, and Twitter is now officially known as X. This change is a part of Elon Musk’s larger plan to develop a super app, and X is now establishing its own unique identity. Surprisingly, this entire rebranding was accomplished in just three days. However, there is some speculation about whether Musk rushed the process and overlooked certain details, particularly regarding the new logo. A recent report has pointed out some irregularities with the logo and has raised concerns about its legitimacy for the company’s use.
According to a report by The Verge, the first part of the problem comes from the source behind the logo design itself. A stylized X is, at the end of the day, just two diagonal lines that intersect. But it turns out it wasn’t designed from scratch. Although Twitter user Sawyer Merritt, who allowed Musk to use the logo, has claimed that the inspiration behind the logo came from a font the designer found online, the designer himself denies the information.
In a tweet, the logo’s designer, Alex, tweeted the story behind the logo and explained that it was based on a Unicode character. The Unicode character in question is U+1D54F, which has been around since 2001 and is quite similar to the current Twitter logo. But luckily for Musk, the characters submitted to the Unicode Standard are released under the Unicode License, which is free and open source for anyone to use without restrictions.
But The Verge has discovered a new origin for the new logo, which makes things more complicated. According to the report, the X in the logo looks very similar to the small X in Monotype’s Special Alphabet 4. Monotype has not commented on the matter, but if the logos match, Musk will have to purchase a license to use it.
X’s trademark problem
There is one more problem with the X logo, and this one goes beyond design. A company’s logo is also part of its trademark, and protecting a trademark consisting of one letter of the alphabet can be insanely challenging. A Fast Company report stated, “Individual letters are the most popular trademarks registered in the United States. Each letter of the alphabet has at least hundreds of trademarks.”
And if you’re confused about how there can be multiple trademarks for the same letter, the answer is simple. Trademarks exist to help consumers distinguish goods and services from one source to another. “A trademark doesn’t have to be particularly unique to be protectable, as long as the owner can show that people associate the mark with the brand,” Northeastern University law and media professor Alexandra Roberts told The Verge.
It certainly won’t be difficult for Musk to trademark X due to the platform’s large user base. But the problem comes from those who also use the X trademark. Microsoft is one of them. It trademarked the X logo in 2003 for its Xbox console, which was intended to “provide online chat rooms for the transmission of video and computer game messages among computer users”.
Likewise, Metal also trademarked the X logo, which was registered after it acquired Microsoft’s (now defunct) Mixer streaming platform. It also applies to gaming.
On the surface, this doesn’t seem to affect Musk because his brand’s industry is social media. But that can change quickly. In order to create an “everything app”, gaming ultimately has to be a part of it. Both WeChat and Grab, existing super apps, have in-app gaming. But if Musk deviates from gaming, this could lead to a potential legal issue with both Meta and Microsoft.
It’s still early days and X will no doubt be looking into the technical details of all these issues, but it will be interesting to see how it all pans out in the end.
