Twitter Can’t Twademark “Tweet”

Twitter founder Biz Stone announced in a blog post on July 1 that they “have applied to trademark Tweet because it is clearly attached to Twitter from a brand perspective.” However, after diligent research by Sam Johnston of SamJ.net, it turns out that Twitter had their application rejected by the USPTO that very same day.

This is great news for any blogging related company with the word “tweet” in their domain name as well as Twitter’s microblogging competition who wouldn’t want somebody to have a stranglehold on the name. Unfortunately for Twitter, however, the term was definitely popularized by the company much like the verb “google” was derived from the search engine.

What do you think – should Twitter be able to trademark this term or should it be free for anybody to use?

[via SamJ.net]

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