Operation Bluebird Wants to Bring ‘Twitter’ Back to Life

A Virginia startup calling itself Operation Bluebird announced this week that it has filed a ceremonial petition with the US Patent and Trademark Office, asking the national bureau to cancel X Corporation’s trademarks of the words “Twitter” and “tweet” since X has allegedly abandoned them.

“The TWITTER and TWEET brands person been eradicated from X Corp.’s products, services, and marketing, efficaciously abandoning the storied brand, with nary volition to resume usage of the mark,” the petition states. “The TWITTER vertebrate was grounded.”

If successful, 2 leaders of the radical archer Ars, Operation Bluebird would motorboat a societal web nether the sanction Twitter.new, perchance arsenic aboriginal arsenic precocious adjacent year. (Twitter.new has created a moving prototype and is already inviting users to reserve handles.)

Neither X Corporation nor its proprietor Elon Musk instantly responded to Ars Technica’s petition for comment.

Michael Peroff, an Illinois lawyer and laminitis of Operation Bluebird, said that successful the intervening years, much Twitter-like societal media networks person sprung up oregon gained traction—like Threads, Mastodon, and Bluesky. But nary person the standard oregon marque designation that Twitter did anterior to Musk’s takeover.

“There surely are alternatives,” Peroff said. “I don’t cognize that immoderate of them astatine this constituent successful clip are astatine the standard that would marque a quality successful the nationalist conversation, whereas a caller Twitter truly could.”

Similarly, Peroff’s concern partner, Stephen Coates, an lawyer who formerly served arsenic Twitter’s wide counsel, said that Operation Bluebird aims to re-create immoderate of the magic that Twitter erstwhile had.

“I retrieve immoderate clip ago, I’ve had celebrities respond to my contented connected Twitter during the Super Bowl oregon events,” helium told Ars. “And we privation that acquisition to travel back, that full municipality square, wherever we are each meshed successful there.”

Could It Work?

Elon Musk bought Twitter successful 2022 for $44 billion. He yet changed the institution sanction and marque individuality from Twitter to X. That decision, Operation Bluebird says, created an opening for the Twitter sanction to beryllium formally abandoned.

In July 2023, Musk himself tweeted that “we shall bid adieu to the twitter brand, and gradually, each the birds.”

That was erstwhile Peroff, a Chicago-area lawyer specializing successful trademark and IP law, saw an accidental not lone to assertion the sanction Twitter but besides to usage the iconic illustrated logo that was affectionately referred to internally arsenic “Larry Bird.”