A Virginia startup calling itself Operation Bluebird announced this week that it has filed a formal petition with the US Patent and Trademark Office, asking the federal agency to cancel X Corporation’s trademarks of the words “Twitter” and “tweet” since X has allegedly abandoned them.

“The TWITTER and TWEET brands have been eradicated from X Corp.’s products, services, and marketing, effectively abandoning the storied brand, with no intention to resume use of the mark,” the petition states. “The TWITTER bird was grounded.”

If successful, two leaders of the group tell Ars, Operation Bluebird would launch a social network under the name Twitter.new, possibly as early as late next year. (Twitter.new has created a working prototype and is already inviting users to reserve handles.)

Neither X Corporation nor its owner Elon Musk immediately responded to Ars Technica’s request for comment.

Michael Peroff, an Illinois attorney and founder of Operation Bluebird, said that in the intervening years, more Twitter-like social media networks have sprung up or gained traction—like Threads, Mastodon, and Bluesky. But none have the scale or brand recognition that Twitter did prior to Musk’s takeover.

“There certainly are alternatives,” Peroff said. “I don’t know that any of them at this point in time are at the scale that would make a difference in the national conversation, whereas a new Twitter really could.”

Similarly, Peroff’s business partner, Stephen Coates, an attorney who formerly served as Twitter’s general counsel, said that Operation Bluebird aims to re-create some of the magic that Twitter once had.

“I remember some time ago, I’ve had celebrities react to my content on Twitter during the Super Bowl or events,” he told Ars. “And we want that experience to come back, that whole town square, where we are all meshed in there.”

Could It Work?

Elon Musk bought Twitter in 2022 for $44 billion. He eventually changed the company name and brand identity from Twitter to X. That decision, Operation Bluebird says, created an opening for the Twitter name to be formally abandoned.

In July 2023, Musk himself tweeted that “we shall bid adieu to the twitter brand, and gradually, all the birds.”

That was when Peroff, a Chicago-area attorney specializing in trademark and IP law, saw an opportunity not only to claim the name Twitter but also to use the iconic illustrated logo that was affectionately referred to internally as “Larry Bird.”