Does Microsoft own the trademark for “X”?
Can Someone simply own the trademark to a letter?
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There has been some buzz around the letter X recently as Elon Musk has decided to rebrand the sinking ship that is Twitter to “X”. This rebrand seems minimal to begin with but could be an attempt to start afresh after buying and gutting Twitter. However, it seems there may be a problem with this plan. Does Microsoft own the trademark for “X”?
Does Microsoft own “X”?
Microsoft doesn’t own the letter X, but it may own the trademark to use it in its singular context. Microsoft has a lot of products that use the letter X in their naming, the most notable of which is probably the X box. And of course, the software that inspired it, DirectX.
Microsoft has trademarked the letter X, and the trademark is still active, this means that Microsoft singularly owns the right to use “X” on its own for a product or service, but nobody else does.
This is a painfully simplified explanation as we aren’t patent lawyers, but this is essentially how we understand the case to be.
Does this mean Elon Musk can’t use X as Twitter’s new name?
Essentially, yes it does. Microsoft is well within its right to sue Elon Musk over the use of X in his rebranding of Twitter. Microsoft, of course, could not bother suing Elon over the new name of his website, but that’s an unlikely scenario.
We aren’t Microsoft so we don’t know if Microsoft will go after Elon and his Twitter rebrand, or exactly why, but whatever happens, it may just be another nail in the coffin for Twitter. We’re not sure how much more of a beating Twitter can take at this point.
