A new startup called Operation Bluebird is making a bold move to reclaim the old Twitter branding.
According to reports from Ars Technica and Reuters, the company has filed a petition asking the US Patent and Trademark Office to cancel X Corp.’s ownership of the “Twitter” and “Tweet” trademarks.
The petition argues that Elon Musk’s company has abandoned those trademarks and no longer uses them.
Operation Bluebird is led by Michael Peroff, a trademark and brand protection attorney from Illinois, and Stephen Coates, who previously worked at Twitter as its associate director of trademarks, domain names, and marketing. The startup has also submitted its own trademark application for the name “Twitter” and plans to use it for a new social platform called Twitter.new.
Coates told The Verge that their platform has a familiar look and feel for anyone who used the old Twitter but includes new tools aimed at creating a safer environment. A LinkedIn post from Operation Bluebird suggests the new service would use AI to help with fact-checking and content moderation.
In its filing, Operation Bluebird claims that X legally abandoned the Twitter brand with no intention of bringing it back. The petition also accuses X of filing false statements with the USPTO. Under US trademark law, a trademark may be canceled for abandonment if it hasn’t been used for three consecutive years or if the owner has stopped using it and doesn’t plan to resume. After Elon Musk bought Twitter in 2022, he renamed the platform to X and officially removed the bird logo in mid-2023.
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Operation Bluebird’s challenge now puts the fate of the old Twitter branding into the hands of US trademark regulators, opening a new chapter in the ongoing fallout from Twitter’s transformation into X.
