It’s not often, but occasionally two companies do come to a compromise in an intellectual property lawsuit that avoids a lengthy and expensive legal battle in court and that leaves both sides happy. It looks like Twitter and Twittad came to such an agreement a few weeks ago.
We posted several weeks back about the battle over the right to trademark the word “tweet” that was occurring between the two companies. Twitter was trying to register “tweet” with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (“PTO”), but it kept running into troubles. The PTO refused to grant Twitter the trademark because there were already registrations for “tweetmarks,” “cotweet,” tweetphoto” and “tweets.” Twittad owned the registration for the phrase “Let Your Ad Meet Tweets.”
Frustrated with its inability to register the trademark associated with its own service, Twitter brought a trademark infringement lawsuit against Twittad in San Francisco federal court. Twitter and Twittad have now come to an agreement, and Twitter recently dropped its lawsuit. Twittad will be able to continue to use the phrase “Let Your Ad Meet Tweets,” while it transferred rights to “tweet” to Twitter. Twitter, in turn, un-suspended Twittad’s Twitter account.
Do you think Twitter bullied Twittad into a compromise? Should Twittad have been allowed to use the word ‘tweet’ if it came up with it on its own?
Klein Trial Lawyers – Los Angeles business litigation attorneys