Twitter Shows Expansion Plans with Trademark Applications

Orange County – Since July of last year, Twitter has ramped up its efforts in protecting its trademarks by filing a number of Trademark Applications. The applications appear to cover a wide scope of trademarks, from protecting its fundamental business to hinting toward its broadening efforts related to social media.

One notable application is for Tweetstorm. As Twitter limits the number of characters per post to 140, some users post a “tweetstorm” in order to complete their idea. A tweetstorm is a procession of tweets posted right after each other that relate to one thought or idea.

Tweetstorms have already been used by a number of twitter enthusiasts, including Kanye West and Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey. Dorsey mentioned in a statement that it was “a clever way around the 140 character constraint”

Other trademark applications include “The Future of Identity” and an icon which will be used for streaming news in real time. Both applications appear to be in relation to Twitter broadening its role in social media to include more involvement with news and security software.

According to the USPTO website, “The Future of Identity” was filed in regard to software “enabling user identification, authentication and verification.” Many apps and mobile games already require a user to login using their Facebook credentials in order for the developer to enhance security. Twitter is perhaps attempting to have users use their Twitter login information as a security tool, just as Facebook does.

Twitter also filed a Design Trademark Application for a live news app that would allow users to share and communicate about a real-time news story. Live streaming and audio recordings would also enable the new app or website to create a forum based setting for users. As a result of its interest in moving more into the live streaming area Twitter recently acquired Periscope, which is an app that allows users to broadcast live videos by streaming them on Twitter. Last month Twitter filed a trademark application for “Periscope” for “providing online entertainment and real time news information.” Some have suggested that the new design trademark application is related to the new service.

With the recent change to show pictures included with tweets, and now the move to add video as well, Twitter has shown that it is more than willing to go beyond its roots of simple 140 character text only tweets.