There's another big problem with Elon Musk's Twitter rebrand: Microsoft owns the trademark to the title "X." In a word: lol.
  • nzodd@beehaw.orgEnglish
    123·
    1 year ago

    Christ what a fucking moron. Seems to be a running theme with fascists.

  • Raymonf@lemmy.uhhoh.comEnglish
    54·
    1 year ago

    we wouldn’t be at all terribly surprised to know that the billionaire is aware of Microsoft’s patent and more than willing to take the title to court.

    Patent? lol

    • bermuda@beehaw.orgEnglish
      72·
      1 year ago

      the amount of times I’ve read an internet article about this topic only to be met with a shockingly trivial mistake present front and center is staggering. the differences between patent, trademark, wordmark, etc. are all easily googleable and yet pretty much every article I’ve read on this has been using them interchangeably.

      incoming rhetorical question: are these editors orangutans? (before anybody answers, i know editors & authors want to be the first one out the door so they get the most clicks and all that, but it’s really not hard to make sure you’re at least using the correct word. It seriously took me 20 seconds to find an answer on the difference between patent and trademark)

      • tonamel@kbin.social
        37·
        1 year ago

        Of course they made the trivial mistake, because they also made a much, much bigger one. The X trademark as it pertains to social media is owned by Meta, who bought it from Microsoft when they acquired Mixer (which later became Facebook Gaming), including Mixer’s X logo.

      • obosob@feddit.ukEnglish
        8·
        1 year ago

        I think a lot of the issue is the widespread use of the term Intellectual Property which, arguably deliberately, conflates a few completely distinct legal concepts under one umbrella.

        • wjrii@kbin.social
          1·
          1 year ago

          It’s intentional in the sense that they all involve intangible works of the mind and are only “property” in the legal system due to developments much, much later than the “I’ll bash you with a club if take my food” or the “I’ll stab you with a spear if occupy my farm” social contracts of personal and real property. It was very useful for those learning the law.

          You’re right that they do very different things in society though, and it’s not particularly helpful outside the legal profession to bundle them so tightly together. Trademarks in particular should only protect branding and identity and when not abused provide a pretty valuable direct service for consumers in that you know who you’re dealing with.

          The other two protect creators and therefore indirectly promise to “encourage innovation” that should benefit everyone, but they’re literally nothing more than legalized, if limited, monopolies. As Disney has shown though, you can smear the edges of copyright and trademark until they start to blend together.

      • Eggyhead@kbin.social
        2·
        1 year ago

        Thank you for announcing the rhetorical question. I don’t think I would have been prepared for that.

  • gleep23@beehaw.orgEnglish
    41·
    1 year ago

    I can understand a company like Google (Alphabet) and Facebook (Meta) re-branding their wider business infrastructure. Twitter is just Twitter. X is just nostalgia, and Musk is being totally irresponsible with these announcments. He is a petulant little child, looking for attention and the likes. Damn childish - his entire Twitter venture.

          • wjrii@kbin.social
            21·
            1 year ago

            Yes, mostly.

            X.com was Musk’s site after he worked at Scotiabank. They merged with another site that had a product called Paypal that was getting some traction. Musk tried to tie the other services X.com was offering at the hip with Paypal, and if you’re old enough you probably remember a “Paypal by X.com” (or similar) branding back when you needed to buy a used 56k modem from eBay.

            Musk wanted to rebrand everything to x.com, was a huge baby about it, and got pushed out as an executive and replaced by Peter Thiel. A few years ago, Musk purchased the X.com domain name from Paypal like it was a treasured childhood sled, and he’s finally found something (very stupid) to do with it.

    • bermuda@beehaw.orgEnglish
      40·
      1 year ago

      from trademark (note registered in 2003)

      for: providing on-line chat rooms for transmission of messages among computer users concerning video and computer games; providing on-line electronic bulletin boards for transmission of messages among computer users concerning video and computer games, in class 38

      for: entertainment services, namely, providing interactive multiplayer game services for games played over computer networks and global communications networks; providing computer games and video games downloadable over computer global communications networks; providing information on the video game and computer game industries via the internet; and providing information on computer games, video games, video game consoles and accessories therefor via the internet, in class 41

      in short: basically what they did in the ensuing years with Xbox and Games for Windows - Live

      • jarfil@beehaw.orgEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        Does that sentiment include Xwayland, Xlib, and the X protocol? What’s the alternative to X, the Windows Remote Desktop Protocol?

    • prole@beehaw.orgEnglish
      6·
      1 year ago

      Aw man, I was trying to angrily shout racist hate speech into the void, but instead I ended up uninstalling Windows completely…

      This confusion is exactly why Elon needs to protect his new trademark!

  • steltek@lemm.eeEnglish
    25·
    1 year ago

    Cisco owned the “iPhone” trademark and was actively using it to sell products. Weirder things have happened.

    Apple simply started using it and told Cisco, “Make me stop”.

    • mosiacmango@lemm.eeEnglish
      43·
      1 year ago

      To which Cisco replied “okay” and forced Apple to agree to an unknown but likely ludicrous licensing fee.

      Twitter got Apple money right now? Because even Elons billions aint shit compared to Microsofts literal trillions.

      • dan@upvote.auEnglish
        5·
        1 year ago

        Twitter got Apple money right now?

        Twitter’s got so little money that they can’t even pay all their bills, lol.

        Honestly I think they rolled out the new branding without finishing it because they can’t afford proper designers or project managers. The site still says “Twitter” all over the place and they can’t even trademark the new logo.

        • fonix232@kbin.social
          2·
          1 year ago

          Apparently they’ve hired an intern level designer then fired them after 2.5 weeks, once they handed in the design proposal.

          • threetimes@beehaw.orgEnglish
            11·
            1 year ago

            Market capitalization means that every share of MSFT combined at the current price is worth $2.6T. The company has $100B cash on hand. That’s actual cash and investments that could be easily converted to cash. Substantially less than $2 trillion.

              • knotthatone@lemmy.oneEnglish
                3·
                1 year ago

                And as a public company, Microsoft has a lot more options to leverage their equity than a private company or individual does.

              • threetimes@beehaw.orgEnglish
                1·
                1 year ago

                Musk owns stock worth billions. Stock is a liquid asset, meaning he has billions in liquid assets. The $2.6T market cap is what the public shares of MSFT are “worth.” They are owned mostly by people and orgs other than Microsoft, meaning that value is not an asset to Microsoft.

                Your comment is low-effort. Don’t do that.

            • Feydaikin@beehaw.orgEnglish
              1·
              1 year ago

              Isn’t that still a fuck-ton more than what any of their competitors have at their disposal?

    • jcarax@beehaw.orgEnglish
      7·
      1 year ago

      Actually iOS, not iPhone. I think if it were iPhone itself, an actually marketed product from either Apple or Cisco, it would have ended a bit differently. But in both cases, it was just iOS, the operating system of the marketed products.

      In both cases, iOS was a selling point of the product, but not the product itself.

          • cobra89@beehaw.orgEnglish
            7·
            1 year ago

            Apple and Cisco settled their dispute on February 20, 2007. Both companies will be allowed to use the “iPhone” name in exchange for “exploring interoperability” between Apple’s products and Cisco’s services and other unspecified terms

            Seriously, they let it go for nothing. When did Apple and Cisco ever integrate products?..

            Edit: Also it says they’re both allowed to use it. I would love to see Cisco come out with an “iPhone” in 2023 lol

            • jcarax@beehaw.orgEnglish
              3·
              1 year ago

              Honestly, there would probably be far more backlash against them than benefit. But it would be hilarious.

              I wonder if they got some help with early app development, or something. I’ve always avoided Cisco, so I don’t know if they offered any mobile management or monitoring tools early on.

  • zxo@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    21·
    1 year ago

    Maybe he shoulda just stuck with the bird, or thought of a name that is even a tad more creative. I’m pretty sure a hamster or a piece of paper could do a better job at managing Twitter than Muskrat is right now.

  • ThrDarkFlame@feddit.nlEnglish
    15·
    1 year ago

    At what point does the game Xcom become involved… That shit has been around forever, and is definitely very close to X.com

  • lazylion_ca@lemmy.caEnglish
    7·
    1 year ago

    Knock knock, open up the door, it’s a subpoena
    Trademark infringement means a judge wants to see ya!

    X gonna serve it to ya

    • IHeartBadCode@kbin.social
      9·
      1 year ago

      Clearly the original was Mythos Games when they produced XCOM. Musk just added a fucking dot and thought that made it “original”.