Pfizer Inc.’s proposed $43 billion takeover of Seagen Inc. will undergo an in-depth antitrust review by the Federal

By Marine Strauss BRUSSELS Providing equitable access to appropriate housing in slums and other informal settlements could massively

By William Schomberg and David Milliken LONDON (Reuters) -British voters are set to suffer a "living standards disaster" as they

RIDGEVILLE, S.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun 6, 2023--

By Huw Jones LONDON (Reuters) -The European Union's executive body said on Wednesday it has formally adopted a draft memorandum

The union representing striking writers said it’s evaluating a new labor proposal from Hollywood studios following a three-month-long

We didn’t think it was possible, but Elon Musk’s tenure at Twitter took an even stranger turn this week after he rebranded the social media platform to “X” out of the blue. It turns out Musk has been obsessed with naming things after the letter all his career, but it still came as a big surprise that he decided to change the name of an internationally recognised brand overnight to something that sounds more like a porn site or gentleman’s club. The logo is a pretty generic graphic, which replaced the famous blue Twitter bird after Musk crowdsourced ideas from users last weekend. It’s left people with more questions than answers at this point – one of them surrounds the issue of Microsoft and potential disputes over the letter “X” as a trademark. “X” is pretty common in names of companies and organisations and the likes of Meta and Microsoft reportedly have intellectual property rights around the letter “X”. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter In fact, as Reuters reports, the likelihood is that Twitter – now "X" – could well face legal action over the name change. "There's a 100 per cent chance that Twitter is going to get sued over this by somebody," said trademark attorney Josh Gerben. According to Gerben, there are close to 900 active U.S. trademark registrations surrounding the letter “X”. Microsoft does indeed have an X trademark which it’s held since 2003. However, it’s related to communications about its Xbox video game system. Meta Platforms also owns a trademark for an “X”, which is related to software and social media. According to Gerben, the two companies are unlikely to sue over the Twitter name change unless they believe the move encroaches on their brand equity. Douglas Masters, who is a trademark attorney at law firm Loeb & Loeb, said [via Reuters]: "Given the difficulty in protecting a single letter, especially one as popular commercially as 'X', Twitter's protection is likely to be confined to very similar graphics to their X logo. "The logo does not have much distinctive about it, so the protection will be very narrow." Social media user Keith Edwards posted on the topic by uploading a screen grab of Microsoft’s 2003 patent for “X”, writing: “Microsoft owns the trademark for X. This is just too good.” A community note was added to the post which read: Microsoft only holds this trademark for videogame-related services; this wouldn't affect Twitter. “However, Meta holds the ‘X’ trademark for ‘online social networking services... social networking services in the fields of entertainment, gaming and application development…’” Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

HOUSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct 26, 2023--

Sweden’s central bank has raised its key interest rate, saying the “inflationary pressures in the Swedish economy are still too high.”

By Yves Herman, Ingrid Melander and Andrew Gray STRASBOURG (Reuters) -EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen announced an anti-subsidy

Infineon Technologies AG shares dropped the most in more than two years after the company’s fourth-quarter outlook raised

Petroleos Mexicanos shut down the country’s largest oil-exporting terminal because of a leak, adding to a string of