There isn’t a day that has gone by in recent memory where I haven’t heard the word “Tweet” used in conjunction with someone’s Twitter message, in fact I often use the word Tweet when reporting on someone’s Twitter status during Inquisitr articles, yet that type of media and real world coverage hasn’t been enough for Twitter to have the word trademarked.
Twitter has already failed to win the trademark rights to Tweet on two occasions including once against TwittAd which trademarked the phrase “Let Your Ad Meet Tweets.” Twitter sued that company in Federal court and even removed their twitter username.
In a statement regarding their newest attempt Twitter said:
“It is in the best interests of our users and developers for the meaning of ‘Tweet’ to be preserved to prevent any confusion, so we are taking action to protect its meaning.”
In the meantime a “whipped-marshmallow manufacturer” has also attempted to trademark the name and so has an over-the-door metal hooks company and even a ‘bird remediation and pest control” system company.
To be honest I don’t think the word should be allowed to carry a trademark, a bird says “tweet tweet” and always has, the moment the trademark office allows company’s to trademark already commonly used words is the moment we should all realize big government has overstepped it’s bounds.
I personally only think of “Tweet” as part of Twitter when the context of a subject or sentence justifies that assumption such as “I’m going to Tweet about this.” Do you think Twitter should be able to control the word “Tweet” and how it’s used as part of the everyday lexicon?
