In 
If Twitter has its way, then in certain cases you might have to take the companys permission before you go about using the word tweet. Only the birds in the sky will be able to tweet, tweet, tweet. In the latest instance, Twitter is suing Twittad, a marketing company focused on promoting through Twitter, over the use of the word tweet in its slogan, Let Your Ad Meet Tweets.
This isn't the first time that Twitter is making a big stink about developers using the term tweet in their Twitter apps. For many years, the company has been trying to register the tweet trademark in USA, but it has failed so far, partially because many third party developers have beaten the company by successfully filing trademarks, which included the word tweet in them.
It goes without saying, that tweet has been a dictionary word for centuries. But Twitter does not care. Along with suing Twittad, Twitter has also suspended its account.
Twitters complaint against Twittad goes as follows:
This action arises from the registration of the mark LET YOUR AD MEET TWEETS by Twittad, LLC (Twittad or Defendant) in connection with online advertising services for use on Twitter. Defendants LET YOUR AD MEET TWEETS registration unfairly exploits the widespread association by the consuming public of the mark TWEET with Twitter, and threatens to block Twitter from its registration and legitimate uses of its own mark. In fact, it appears that Defendant has used LET YOUR AD MEET TWEETS solely as a generic phrase to refer advertising in connection with Twitter itself, and as such it is incapable of serving as a mark, rendering the registration subject cancellation on that ground. Alternatively, if Defendant is able to establish use of LET YOUR AD MEET TWEETS as a mark, its registration is subject to cancellation based on Twitters preexisting rights in the TWEET mark. Accordingly, Twitter seeks cancellation of Twittads LET YOUR AD MEET TWEETS trademark registration under the Lanham Act 15 U.S.C. 1052(d), 1064 and 1119.
This lawsuit is clearly an over reaction on part of Twitter. Hardly anyone cares about how the word tweet is being used in any particular ad. The Let Your Ad Meet Tweets campaign is not going to affect the way people use the word tweet. For that matter even the existence of Twitter has not had much effect on the meaning of tweet. A vast majority of humans know for sure that tweet stands for the sounds that the birds make. The guys at Twitter might be under the impression that tweet only means the posting of those one-liners at their website. But that is not the case.
It is also a fact that over a period of time trademarks of the really popular products and services tend to creep into the vernacular. Think of Xerox, Kleenex, Jacuzzi, Surf, and, of course, Google. These are names of companies that have now become synonymous with products. Today people talk about Googling with Bing. Someday we might talk about Tweeting with some non-Twitter website that is also offering the facility of networking through crisp one-liners.
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