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Elon Musk's decision to rebrand social media giant Twitter as X could have legal complications, as companies including Meta and Microsoft already have intellectual property rights to the same letter. According to a report by the news agency Reuters on Tuesday (July 25), X is so widely used and cited in trademarks that it has become a candidate for legal challenges. 

US trademark attorney Josh Gerben said, "There's a 100% chance that Twitter is going to get sued over this (its new name) by somebody." Gerben added that he counted nearly 900 active American trademark registrations that already cover the letter X in a wide range of industries.

Owners of trademarks can claim infringement if other branding would cause consumer confusion. Remedies range from monetary damages to blocking use.

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The 'X' owned by Meta and Microsoft 

Meta owns a federal trademark registered in 2019 covering a blue-and-white letter "X" for fields including software and social media. Microsoft, on the other hand, has owned an X trademark related to communications about its Xbox video game system since 2003. 

Also read | Elon Musk explains why Twitter had to rebrand itself to 'X' and dump the bluebird

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Attorney Gerben said that Meta and Microsoft likely would not sue unless they feel threatened that Twitter's X encroaches on brand equity they built in the letter. 

Twitter sign starts coming down at San Francisco HQ for rebranding 

On Monday, the Twitter sign started coming down at the company's San Francisco headquarters, as part of the rebranding process. A stylised white X on a black background became the new logo on Twitter's website. However, the bluebird was still seen on the mobile app on Monday. 

The new logo of the social media giant has garnered mixed reactions from users and sparked confusion about what tweets would now be called. Marketing and branding experts meanwhile, said, that rebranding risked throwing away years of Twitter's name recognition.

"Only a few brands have become verbs or seen themselves referred to in global news outlets as often as Twitter has. Anything that makes it harder for people to find, or want to open the app on their cluttered phone screens risks harming usage," Matt Rhodes, strategy lead at creative agency House 337, told Reuters. 

(With inputs from agencies)

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