18
votes
Intellectual property attorney claims that more than 900 companies have trademarked X, Musk's company will face lawsuits
Link information
This data is scraped automatically and may be incorrect.
- Title
- Meta, Microsoft, hundreds more own trademarks to new Twitter name
- Authors
- Blake Brittain
- Published
- Jul 25 2023
- Word count
- 451 words
If so many companies have this trademark, how are any of them valid? It would seem that none of them could actually use it without potentially infringing on 899 other holders.
I would recommend reading the article, as it does dig in to how that can happen. For example. A company may have a trademark that relates to using a visually similar logo in a similar context that could be confusing to consumers.
Nobody is going to get a law firm and a restaurant confused because they have a somewhat similar logo.
Yeah, that makes sense conceptually. But with so many registrations, it's hard to imagine that there isn't some degree of overlap. Especially when Microsoft claims the trademark for "social media and technology" or whatever which is just ridiculously broad when you consider the brand they use it for.
That’s the real problem. The vast majority of these trademarks won’t be a problem but, with so many, how much space is left for Musk? Particularly since it seems like the owners of some of the areas he wants to operate in are big and well funded.
Trademark is highly specific. They can all coexist, but later ones must avoiding overlapping with the existing ones.
A high profile example is Apple. The original big name was Apple Records, which published The Beatles. Apple Computers started, and got permission from Records to use the name as long as they stayed in computers and did nothing with music. This worked great until ipod/iTunes were invented, then it became an issue!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Corps_v_Apple_Computer
Not to worry, I'm sure Musk has an army of top-notch defense attorneys who he won't pay...