Daiwa Securities Group Inc. employees are widely using an artificial intelligence-powered chatbot in Japan, as the nation’s second-largest

By Chris Taylor NEW YORK Consumers facing high asset prices and rising interest rates have a few loan

China has imposed export curbs on two metals used in computer chips and solar cells, expanding a squabble with Washington over high-tech trade ahead of Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s visit to Beijing this week

By Ankur Banerjee SINGAPORE Asian shares sank to nine-month lows on Thursday, while the dollar was at a

We didn’t think it was possible, but Elon Musk’s tenure at Twitter took an even stranger turn this week after he rebranded the social media platform to “X” out of the blue. It turns out Musk has been obsessed with naming things after the letter all his career, but it still came as a big surprise that he decided to change the name of an internationally recognised brand overnight to something that sounds more like a porn site or gentleman’s club. The logo is a pretty generic graphic, which replaced the famous blue Twitter bird after Musk crowdsourced ideas from users last weekend. It’s left people with more questions than answers at this point – one of them surrounds the issue of Microsoft and potential disputes over the letter “X” as a trademark. “X” is pretty common in names of companies and organisations and the likes of Meta and Microsoft reportedly have intellectual property rights around the letter “X”. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter In fact, as Reuters reports, the likelihood is that Twitter – now "X" – could well face legal action over the name change. "There's a 100 per cent chance that Twitter is going to get sued over this by somebody," said trademark attorney Josh Gerben. According to Gerben, there are close to 900 active U.S. trademark registrations surrounding the letter “X”. Microsoft does indeed have an X trademark which it’s held since 2003. However, it’s related to communications about its Xbox video game system. Meta Platforms also owns a trademark for an “X”, which is related to software and social media. According to Gerben, the two companies are unlikely to sue over the Twitter name change unless they believe the move encroaches on their brand equity. Douglas Masters, who is a trademark attorney at law firm Loeb & Loeb, said [via Reuters]: "Given the difficulty in protecting a single letter, especially one as popular commercially as 'X', Twitter's protection is likely to be confined to very similar graphics to their X logo. "The logo does not have much distinctive about it, so the protection will be very narrow." Social media user Keith Edwards posted on the topic by uploading a screen grab of Microsoft’s 2003 patent for “X”, writing: “Microsoft owns the trademark for X. This is just too good.” A community note was added to the post which read: Microsoft only holds this trademark for videogame-related services; this wouldn't affect Twitter. “However, Meta holds the ‘X’ trademark for ‘online social networking services... social networking services in the fields of entertainment, gaming and application development…’” Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

SYDNEY--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jul 5, 2023--

While all the world is fretting over a potential default in the US, a country at the center

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug 24, 2023--

3M has agreed to pay almost $10 million to settle apparent violations of Iranian sanctions, the US Office of Foreign Assets Control said last week.

China Evergrande Group delayed creditor meetings on its offshore-debt restructuring proposal just hours before they were to occur

Nigel Farage, the former leader of the pro-Brexit UK Independence Party, said his bank accounts are being closed

Australia's native forests are facing a critical challenge: the constant threat of deforestation. These rich