Multiply Files Suit In US District Court Of California Against X For Violating Trademark Rights

Multiply Files Suit In US District Court Of California Against X For Violating Trademark Rights

Elon Musk had rebranded Twitter last year

A lawsuit has been filed in the US District Court of California against Elon Musk's social-media platform X (formerly Twitter) for violating the trademark rights of the PR firm Multiply.

The complaint said that X causes consumer confusion by using the trademark for social-media marketing services that compete with Multiply.

The spokesperson for Multiply expressed that Musk "shamelessly stole the established identity of our social media and PR agency. We had no choice but to defend our mark and fight X in court."

Last year, Musk rebranded Twitter as X after buying the platform. Hundreds of other companies own ‘X’ and Musk's X is already facing a separate infringement from marketing firm X SocialMedia.

Meanwhile, Virginia-based Multiply has created social-media ad campaigns for drink brands including Arizona, Corona and Liquid Death. It adopted ‘X’ branding in 2019 and owns a federal trademark covering its logo.

The complaint said that the Twitter rebrand confused existing and prospective clients of Multiply, many of which overlap with X Corp. Multiply requested the court to force X Corp to stop using the ‘X’ trademark and to award an unspecified number of monetary damages.

Keith Wesley and John Harabedian of Ellis George appeared for Multiply