Microsoft Owns the Trademark for “X”

https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=2693757&caseSearchType=US_APPLICATION&caseType=DEFAULT&searchType=statusSearch

by CharlesW • 3 years ago

215 119 3 years ago

tsdr.uspto.gov

Looks on point, huh

Clamchop• 3 years ago

It's scoped to video games and associated entertainment and services so it shouldn't apply to Twitter, if that's what this post is getting at.

devalnor• 3 years ago

"Entertainment services, namely, providing interactive multiplayer game services for games played over computer networks and global communications networks; providing computer games and video games downloadable over computer global communications networks; providing information on the video game and computer game industries via the Internet; and providing information on computer games, video games, video game consoles and accessories therefor via the Internet"

tchbnl• 3 years ago

I recommend checking under "Goods and Services" on that page. Some of those seem _just_ vague enough that Twitter could run afoul of them.

gruez• 3 years ago

The fact that it's vague also means it's easier to have it invalidated on the basis that it's too broad.

superfrank• 3 years ago

Musk's vision for X seems to be an everything app similar to WeChat. Wouldn't MS's trademark at least limit him from expanding X into gaming?

netsharc• 3 years ago

Or, it seems, any tweet that talks about gaming. It'd be funny if gaming companies and publications had to be removed from Twitter because of this trademark issue. Or if a Microsoft game studio tweeted about a game and it'd be a basis for a Microsoft trademark lawsuit against Twitter:

A similar sort of trademark fight:

In 1978, Apple Corps, the Beatles-founded holding company and owner of their record label, Apple Records, filed a lawsuit against Apple Computer for trademark infringement. The suit was settled in 1981 with an undisclosed amount being paid to Apple Corps. [...] As a condition of the settlement, Apple Computer agreed not to enter the music business, and Apple Corps agreed not to enter the computer business.

From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Corps_v_Apple_Computer

fredoralive• 3 years ago

At least in relation to video games.

colechristensen• 3 years ago

For computer gaming things yes. You could, for example register your own trademark on X for selling unusual bananas without violating Microsoft’s mark

Providing on-line chat rooms for transmission of messages among computer users concerning video and computer games; providing on-line electronic bulletin boards for transmission of messages among computer users concerning video and computer games
Entertainment services, namely, providing interactive multiplayer game services for games played over computer networks and global communications networks; providing computer games and video games downloadable over computer global communications networks; providing information on the video game and computer game industries via the Internet; and providing information on computer games, video games, video game consoles and accessories therefor via the Internet

brewdad• 3 years ago

This MS trademark could certainly put a damper on X becoming the "everything" app for the internet even if it doesn't appear to be an issue for The Site Formerly Known as Twitter currently.

valianteffort• 3 years ago

No it won't, because you can't trademark usage of a letter generally.

signal_space• 3 years ago

https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=87980831&caseType=SERIAL_...

ms sold this one to meta

nateb2022• 3 years ago

This one is much more applicable to Musk's X:

Design and development of computer software; providing interactive websites featuring technology that enable online users to create personal profiles; providing online non-downloadable software and software as a service (SaaS) services featuring software, for transmitting and for receiving live streaming; providing online non-downloadable software and software as a service (SaaS) services featuring software, for transmitting and for receiving video on demand; electronic storage of electronic media, namely, images, text, video, and audio data; providing temporary use of online non-downloadable software and software as a service (SaaS) services featuring software for broadcasting, transmitting, receiving, accessing, viewing, uploading, downloading, sharing, integrating, encoding, decoding, displaying, formatting, organizing, storing, caching, transferring and streaming of data, text, games, game content, digital media, images, music, audio, video and animations; providing temporary use of online non-downloadable software and software as a service (SaaS) services featuring software for sending, receiving and organizing electronic mail, messaging, enabling internet chat and social networking; providing temporary use of online non-downloadable software and software as a service (SaaS) services featuring software for purchasing and subscribing to digital media content; providing temporary use of online non-downloadable software and software as a service (SaaS) services featuring software for developing and publishing applications for interactive streaming; providing temporary use of online non-downloadable software and software as a service (SaaS) services featuring software for management and storage of digital media; computer software consulting services in the field of gaming technology and graphics software; computer programming services; providing temporary use of non-downloadable game software; Application service provider (ASP), namely, hosting computer software applications of others; hosting of third party digital content in the nature of photos, videos, audio, music, text, data, images, software, applications, games, web sites and other electronic works on the Internet; hosting of digital content on the Internet; consulting in the field of the design and development of computer hardware, software, software applications, and computer networks; digital and electronic file data transfer from one computer format to another; provision of Internet and computer network search engines; graphic design services; Software as a Service (SAAS) featuring software for facilitating audio, video and digital content creation, subscriptions and one-time purchases; creating an online community for computer users to participate in discussions, obtain feedback, form virtual communities, and engage in social networking; software maintenance, installation and update services; providing a website featuring technology that enables users to live stream gaming content, music, audio, video and animations
Online social networking services; online social networking services, namely, facilitating social introductions or interactions among individuals; social networking services in the fields of entertainment, gaming and application development; providing information about social networking that involves online gaming, online video games and online video gaming applications; providing an Internet website portal for engaging in social networking; providing information, news, commentary in the field of social networking

summerlight• 3 years ago

Looks like Musk needs to invent a very creative way for circumvention...

edandersen• 3 years ago

So Microsoft sold the Mixer logo trademark to Meta? Cool.

amelius• 3 years ago

Didn't Alphabet already own the entire alphabet?

thisgoodlife• 3 years ago

I didn’t know a letter can be trademarked. If let’s say Xerox decides to get into the video game business, can Microsoft sue them for trademark infringement?

bawolff• 3 years ago

A trademark on "X" doesn't block using 'Xerox'

killingtime74• 3 years ago

Xerox is not "X". You may be interested in doing some research in this area what is trade markable and also the procedure. Even if the trademark is registered it can still be challenged. Other interesting things that can be trademarked include colours and sounds, even scents

panzi2• 3 years ago

In the EU there even is a "3D trademark". One famous example is the LEGO mini figure, which LEGO uses to sue anyone that tries to sell any remotely similar LEGO compatible mini figure.

kibwen• 3 years ago

According to this one: https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=87980831&caseType=SERIAL_... , it seems to be Meta that owns the trademark for X, for about a zillion application domains; expand the "Goods and Services" expando and see for yourself.

EDIT: The last one in the list is in regard to this domain:

Online social networking services; online social networking services, namely, facilitating social introductions or interactions among individuals; social networking services in the fields of entertainment, gaming and application development; providing information about social networking that involves online gaming, online video games and online video gaming applications; providing an Internet website portal for engaging in social networking; providing information, news, commentary in the field of social networking

soligern• 3 years ago

Aren’t Musk and the Zuck feuding right now? This is a hilarious setup.

TX81Z6• 3 years ago

Elon had this planned out from the start, 50 steps ahead.

Make an outrageously high bid on a site with no consistent profit, try desperately to get out of the deal, and fail (as a misdirection of course), alienate power users, kill 50% of revenue, totally nuke site reliability, lose all the top talent, and of course, rack up a pile of lawsuits a mile deep.

And only THEN, blow everybody’s mind by jettisoning a brand so valuable it is a globally recognized verb, rebranding using your competitors IP, and take over 50% of global banking.*

(* this is actually what he said.)

CydeWeys5• 3 years ago

Lots of people/companies own a trademark on X. It's a very common TM. I mean it is a single letter after all!

arcticbull4• 3 years ago

Absolutely, but. If Microsoft owns it in the context of social media, that changes everything.

Sure there's a Delta Airlines and a Delta Faucets. If I wanted to start Delta Carpentry of Iowa that wouldn't be an issue. However, if I bought Alaska Airlines, woke up tomorrow and rebranded it Delta - you can be sure they'd fly their lawyers out to Anchorage out on a Gulfstream.

[edit] Meta -> Microsoft, from tfa. My bad.

dfc• 3 years ago

Every time I have seen the logo I thought of X.org logo:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/X.Org_Foundation

Kye• 3 years ago

They've been goofing on this on Mastodon.

https://floss.social/@XOrgFoundation/110769211019949515

adfm• 3 years ago

There's also X, the moonshot company (Google, Alphabet) https://x.company

user3939382• 3 years ago

Twitter no doubt has a huge legal department that ran a trademark search and decided their use was permissible.

cwkoss• 3 years ago

not anymore!

stevage• 3 years ago

Had.

arkitaip• 3 years ago

They don't have departments anymore and I don't think they can afford legal advice. It's probably just Elon using ChatGPT.

smegger001• 3 years ago

not sure if sarcastic or not. with musk at the helm and with the how he has been firing large swaths of people and has a habit of impulsively acting i wouldn't count on it.

lazide• 3 years ago

First they’d need to still work there, and second he’d need to listen to them. Good luck!

eccodown3• 3 years ago

X owns the trademark for "X" simply by using it, whether it was registered with a trademark office or not. It certainly doesn't hurt that Elon's company registered X.com in 1993, then he purchased it from Paypal in 2017 and has been using it in various capacities since then.

thisgoesnowhere• 3 years ago

Hasn't it been a blank page with a x for a long ass time?

eccodown3• 3 years ago

Transmitting an 'x' online, seems like he's in the data transmission business. It has also been used as a redirect to The Boring Company website to sell hats.

ehhthing3• 3 years ago

They owned the trademark for X scoped to banking and financial services. Meta owns the trademark scoped to social media.

eccodown3• 3 years ago

Trademark is established by use. Registration can offer an extra level of protection, but is not necessary to own a trademark. Elon has been using his X.com since he bought it back from PayPal in 2017, which interestingly is around the time some of these other 'X' registrations took place.

CydeWeys5• 3 years ago

Is Meta using the trademark "X" for social media though? I haven't seen it. They're not gonna win anything if they're not actually using it. That's like the first and most important thing.

winddude• 3 years ago

and it sounds like the logo is just a unicode character <https://www.compart.com/en/unicode/U+1D54F>, or from a standard font <https://catalog.monotype.com/font/monotype/special-alphabets...>.

dbingham• 3 years ago

Do you need to actively use and defend a trademark to maintain it? And does using and defending "X-box" don't the same as "X"?

freehorse2• 3 years ago

Standard Character Claim: No
Mark Drawing Type: 1 - TYPESET WORD(S) /LETTER(S) /NUMBER(S)

They do not own the trademark for the letter "X" (that would make a "Standard Character Claim") but the very specific typeset, as featured on the right side of the linked page.

Here [1] it patents a specific illustration format of X. Again no standard character claim.

So no issue for former twitter, as you can easily see the typeset is very different.

I do not know if there is any precedent of a standard character claim for a single letter, but that would really sound ridiculous to me tbh.

[1] https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=87980831&caseType=SERIAL_...

ehhthing3• 3 years ago

https://trademarkgarden.com/2018/03/09/amazon-and-you/

The two are equivalent.

lolinder• 3 years ago

No, they aren't, and your source doesn't say they are. This is your source's description of the type of trademark that Meta has on X (AN ILLUSTRATION DRAWING WITH WORD(S) /LETTER(S)/ NUMBER(S) INSTYLIZED FORM):

This Type is similar to “STANDARD CHARACTER MARK” in that it can only include words or phrases, and not images, however it does include a claim as to the particular stylization (font) and may, but do not have to, claim color. For example, the trademark “NETFLIX” written in stylized red font.

Edit: The source below is a bit more clear on the differences.

https://www.mavenip.com/blog/standard-character-mark-or-logo...

freehorse2• 3 years ago

It seems that indeed the "1 typed drawing" code is some sort of older version of the "4 standard character mark" code, it was a bit confusing [1]. Still I am unconvinced that this is enforceable in scale apart from protecting them from somebody else basically imitating their x-box services with a fake website or app. It seems that they have a very narrow scope of what it is about (chats/messages etc around gaming).

[1] https://www.docdroid.net/file/download/Ix0YicK/trademarks-ru...

zeroimpl• 3 years ago

Mark Type: Service Mark

Doesn't this just mean they own the rights to their use as a logo? Eg the stylized X on their products? I don't think this blocks anybody from using X in their products as long as the logos are clearly different.

panzi2• 3 years ago

Can you trademark an Unicode character? 𝕏

electricmonk2• 3 years ago

IANYL.

Microsoft owns a trademark registration for X [standard character] for certain goods and services (see: https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=2693757&caseSearchType=US...). Meta owns a trademark registration for X (Stylized), which Microsoft apparently assigned to Meta (see https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=87980831&caseType=SERIAL_...). Musk as been using X in various capacities since the 90s, and depending on the specifics of that use, may have some common law trademark rights in the mark.

Regardless of whether or not any party has a registration for a particular trademark/service mark identifying certain goods/services, the question about whether the marks should be allowed to co-exist depends on whether there is a likelihood that there will be confusion between the 2 marks in the marketplace (defining the appropriate marketplace is part of the test for any given likelihood of confusion analysis). There are some other concerns, such as dilution with respect to famous marks that may or may not come into play, but likelihood of [consumer] confusion is the root of it.

CydeWeys5• 3 years ago

Meta and Microsoft may have registered those trademarks but I haven't seen them using them, so they might struggle to actually defend them in court against someone who is very clearly actually using "X".

Honestly Apple probably has the best shot, as they do use "X" prominently. Mac OS X, iPhone X, etc.

electricmonk2• 3 years ago

IANYL.

Just because we haven't seen them doesn't mean there is a market (e.g., b2b) where they may be using them. Also, in this particular instance, since these are registered we can look at what they have provided the USPTO as evidence of use in order to renew the registrations. Microsoft (I think the X involved might actually be the X on the globe logo): https://tsdr.uspto.gov/documentviewer?caseId=sn76041368&docI.... For Microsoft's use before assigning to Meta: https://tsdr.uspto.gov/documentviewer?caseId=sn87980831&docI.... For that second one, looks like MS sold some assets to Meta after is shut down its Mixer service: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixer_(service)

Apple does use X a lot in product names, but (i) the use is never on its own, so the comparison of the marks is, e.g., X vs Mac OS X, and (ii) Apple generally uses X to denote "10" so that portion of the mark is arguably descriptive or generic as a version number (see https://tmep.uspto.gov/RDMS/TMEP/print?version=current&href=...).

nba456_• 3 years ago

MS has definitely been using it for Xbox and XCloud.

kyriakos• 3 years ago

Isn't xbox logo an x?

gorlilla• 3 years ago

The "Moron in a hurry test." is stikl one of my favorites.

10g1k• 3 years ago

The Microsoft application (which was granted) was only in relation to online games, messaging services related to such games, and so on, as described in the trademark application. It's not a universal "We own the letter x!"

hoc• 3 years ago

The Norwegian Blue... 44 billion volts...

This is an X-Parrot!!

snoochyboochies4• 3 years ago

I have no idea of the legalities of this. Personally, I feel the rebrand of Twitter to X was a pretty dumb move.

However like most discourse nowadays, I can't trust a single take on any of this. It's all predictably far more political than fact-based in a sort of self-fulfilling, postmodern, prophesy.

Digg was utterly destroyed by this. Then Reddit, which has not died, but is utterly captured and zombified. HackerNews is the last bastion of this - and it is certainly the best, but is clearly being Digg/Reddit'fied.

Whatever this ideological capture cancer zombification is - it's cancer. If you are reading this, recognize it is probably happening to you too. Seems inevitable.

hsjqllzlfkf3• 3 years ago

What is this about reddit being zombified? Dont they have huge traffic?

snoochyboochies4• 3 years ago

The once hilarious, once satirical, r/pyongyang subreddit is now unironically an influential bastion of Communist propaganda. Its contributors are no longer ironic or ban-posting - they are true believers, and they're indistinguishable from the moderators of most all major subreddits & the corporate overlords who tacitly support them. At this point, none even bother to pretend they believe in "free speech" as a human right.

The "you have now been banned by r/pyongyang" punchline is now far more relevant to any subreddit, thread or comment that is not sufficiently left wing (as defined by current date/time).

Reddit is "democratic" insofar as the most upvoted thread/comment makes it to the top, right? No. Around 2016, something happened. (Won't speculate here). Now every default subreddit is run/moderated by explicitly far left wing activists. All non-default subreddits with any level of popularity is similarly run/moderated by explicitly far left wing activists. If it ain't far left Tumblr leftist, it's right wing, and it shall be either annexed by a left wing mod and converted or outright banned.

I'd love to hear HN's strategy to combat this. It is truly nuts. But at this point, we all expect it.

gerdesj• 3 years ago

This is getting out of hand. X: is it "ecs" or "chi" ... and that's only the Latin and Greek alphabets.

https://tsdr.uspto.gov/documentviewer?caseId=sn76041368&docI...

... shows a u/c Latin X with serifs. However the current "status" shows the Mark as: X ie sans-serif.

Is there a difference with respect to a trademark, in the US, between X avec au sans serif? You obviously can't trademark something drawn from the commons - so the letter X itself is probably out of bounds unless you use it in an innovative way.

To become a trademark, you need to innovate in some way ... be distinctive. X ie two short lines crossing at their mid point at an angle between 30 and 45 degrees (can easily be made more formal) defines ... x.

The original filing seems to define X with embellishments (serifs). The current Status implies X without embellishments. Also, the original depiction is pixelated and the L to R stroke is thicker than the R to L stroke.

Its all a bit woolly

ejz• 3 years ago

The two classes focus on video games, so I think (Twitt)er is fine (though if Twitter launched a Twitch competitor one could see it becoming a problem for them!)

blairanderson• 3 years ago

Microsoft doesn't offer "X" social media service. This headline is FUD.

Sunspark• 3 years ago

Twitter's autoresponder replied "We'll get back to you soon."

This is impressive. No more poop emoji?

Microsoft Owns the Trademark for “X”

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