Elon Musk’s X Corp has filed a lawsuit in Delaware federal court against Operation Bluebird, a Virginia startup seeking to cancel the social media company’s Twitter and Tweet trademarks and launch a rival platform styled on Twitter’s former branding.

In court papers, X argues the Twitter brand remains active and protected, pointing to ongoing use and references across the web and by users. “The TWITTER brand is alive and well, owned by X Corp., and is not ripe for the picking,” the complaint states, adding: “Simply put, a rebrand is not an abandonment of trademark rights.”

Operation Bluebird petitioned the US Patent and Trademark Office on 2 December to cancel X’s federal Twitter registrations, asserting that X legally abandoned the marks after rebranding the platform to X in 2023.

The startup says it plans to use Twitter-related marks for a new social network called twitter.new and has applied to register its own Twitter mark. “Our cancellation petition is based on well-established trademark law and we believe we will be successful,” said Bluebird founder Michael Peroff. “We are prepared to take this as far as we need to in order to achieve our goal.”

Stephen Coates, a former Twitter trademark lawyer who is now Bluebird’s general counsel, told USA Today: “X legally abandoned the TWITTER mark, publicly declared the Twitter brand ‘dead,’ and spent substantial resources establishing a new brand identity. They said goodbye. We say hello.”

X’s filing claims consumer confusion would result from Bluebird’s proposed use of the Twitter name and associated branding, and seeks unspecified monetary damages. The company says millions of users still access the platform through twitter.com, that many continue to refer to posts as tweets, and that it maintains and enforces Twitter-related trademarks. The Verge reported X’s assertion that “Twitter never left and continues to be exclusively owned by X Corp.”

Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion in 2022 and subsequently rebranded the service to X. In a 2023 post, he said the company would “bid adieu to the Twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds.”

Trademark attorney Josh Gerben, speaking to The Verge, said the dispute shows X is still prepared to defend the legacy brand: “This case shows that while X Corp. may have tried to bury the Twitter brand, they clearly aren’t ready to let anyone else dig it up.”

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