A small British company is taking on one of the largest tech giants in the world. On Monday, Threads Software Limited, which has owned the “Threads” trademark for more than a decade, threatened further legal action if Meta doesn’t stop using the name within the next 30 days.
“Taking on a U.S. $150 billion company is not an easy decision for us to make. Our business now faces a serious threat from one of the largest technology companies in the world,” the managing director of Threads Software, John Yardley, said in an official press release.
“We recognize that this is a classic ‘David and Goliath’ battle with Meta. And whilst they may think they can use whatever name they want, that does not give them the right to use the Threads brand name,” Yardley said.
Threads Software Ltd., based in Surbiton, England, uses AI to help businesses streamline their communications. It offers an “intelligent message hub” solution for phone calls, emails and other messages.
“Over the last 10 years, we have made a large investment in the Threads name and we did not want to potentially have to write-off this investment simply because Meta happened to like the name we had already coined for a messaging service,” the company wrote on their website.
In the press release, they also stated that lawyers acting on behalf of Meta made four offers from April 2023 to purchase the “threads.app” domain. Threads Software declined all offers, making it clear that the domain was not for sale.
Then, in July, Meta’s Threads platform was officially announced, and at the same time Threads Software also found their Facebook account shut down. According to Michael Overing, a professor at USC Annenberg and an expert in digital law, Threads Software may also have frustrations and no longer being able to access the Facebook platform.
Meta’s Threads was launched as a competitor to X, formerly known as Twitter. Exclusively available to current Instagram users, Threads allows people to share their thoughts through text posts, images and videos. Threads immediately launched in 100 countries but is still not available in Europe as it awaits regulatory clearance from the European Commission over its data collection policies.
While Threads initially amassed over 30 million users on its launch day, making it the fastest-growing platform in history, its user base had fallen by over 80% in August. “I used it for the first 30 days then moved on,” Joseph Rudd, a British content writer for a social media agency, said. “There aren’t many big creators or influencers to follow on there. Engagement is relatively low… and there aren’t any kind of creator analytics.”
Alongside a dwindling customer base, Threads has also faced the wrath of various competitors over the last few months. Elon Musk challenged Mark Zuckerberg to a cage fight over claims Zuckerberg poached former X employees to help him build a “Twitter clone.” Musk threatened to sue Meta for stealing trade secrets, but neither the cage fight nor lawsuit materialized.
Threads Software’s press release offers an inside look at how these types of negotiations usually take place. Notably, they were not the first to be approached by Meta, either. At the time of Threads’ launch, a women’s fashion brand called American Threads held the @Threads Instagram handle, forcing Meta to use @threadsapp instead. But a month later, the retailer’s Instagram account changed handles to @Americanthreads with no explanation, giving Meta full control over the @threads handle.
This is similar to how Meta gained control of the @Meta Instagram handle last year, too. That username was first used by a motorcycle magazine that now goes by the name Vahna. The magazine has never commented directly about how their username switch came to be but wrote in a now-deleted blog post that, “With the flip of a switch, our identity was suddenly watered down, and we watched our name circle the drain and wash away with something we had no control over.”
Whether or not Threads Software will win this case is difficult to ascertain, said Overing. “When it comes to trademark, it’s really about whether the consumer has been misled, and that’s a hard thing to prove. They’d have to find a way to show that people were honestly trying to access the British Threads but were directed to the Meta app instead. In line with the Trademarks Act of 1994, if two products exist in the same category and people are confused about who created it, then infringement could be found in favor of the British company.”
Whether Meta would have to change their name in not only the U.K. but the U.S. as well, Overing is less sure. “If they have a win from the UK court and bring it over to the U.S. They can say the U.S. should follow what the British court did. But in reality, Meta has a lot more money and lawyers and so it’s not going to be as easy of a battle here as it may be in the U.K., he said.” “Part of that is because [the U.S. has] more rules surrounding how you make a determination of an infringement. It’s less likely that in the United States that anyone has heard of this small British company.”
Zuckerberg is confident Threads’ user base will pick back up again as they continue to add more features to the app.
“I revisited it about a week ago,” Rudd says. “I’ve been following people in the hiking/mountaineering space, and it’s a nice change of pace to Instagram.”
“It’s unlikely this will hurt Meta, even if they lose in the U.K.” Overing adds.
But it appears that Threads Software isn’t going to give in easily. If Meta does not stop using the name Threads in the U.K. within the next 30 days, Threads Software said they will seek an injunction from the English Courts.