As many of you know the term Xerox has been used (despite efforts from the company) as a verb for some time now.  Basically meaning that Xerox is used as a generic word meaning to copy, and this has created difficulties for the company to enforce its registered Trademark.   For example, “I need to go Xerox a presentation so that everyone has a paper copy of it for the meeting”. But is Twitter now in danger of becoming a generic term for communication and entering the same situation of having its term Xeroxed as well?

When you go to the USPTO website and search the Trademarks for the term Twitter, you get the following results noting that Twitter or Twitter.com are not a Registered Trademarks.

http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=e70rp.4.1

But you also learn that besides the term not being registered,  it is currently in a Notice of allowance stage.

http://tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr?regser=serial&entry=77166246

But this seems rather odd, as when I look at my own registered Trademark, SALUS®  you can see the steps that we had to go through, and how we progressed through time.  In contrast  you also notice the time lag that Twitter is going through.  Why?  I fully admit that I need an IP lawyer to completely explain what is going on here, but I have my speculation.

Ok so here is where it even gets more weird, nowhere on the Twitter website can you find a TM or a TM for the term Twitter.  Nothing, Nada, Zilch.  I’ve looked on every page, and I cant find it.  IF you know where it is, please tell me.  The closest I come to finding is a Copyright “© 2009 Twitter” notice that is on every page, but no TM anywhere.

So my next question was, how many websites currently have the term ‘twitter’ in their name.  Right off the bat I know of two that I own, TwitterTRUTH.com which your reading, and TwitterSEO.com which I have redirecting to my Body Care Company as I try and figure out what to do with the site. Enough digressing.

THE NUMBERS 

Currently according to http://domain-search.domaintools.com there are over 3,388 registered sites that use Twitter as part of its Domain Name. Wow! (thanks to @NewRulez for showing me this site and @andreweldon others for their suggestions)

This can even be broken down to show 2,757 use Twitter as part of its first name

My site www.twitterTRUTH.com is an example of this

…and 866 registered sites use twitter at the end of the registered domain

and a random example of this is http://www.learningtwitter.com/

So what do you think? 

Has Twitter been XEROXed?

Tags: Trademark, Twitter