Twittersphere helps restore @Instapundit to Instapundit Glenn Reynolds, but all followers lost

Indeed!

As Twitchy reported yesterday, Twitter users coordinated an effort to restore the @Instapundit Twitter handle to Instapundit Glenn Reynolds. You see, for a while the trademarked name was used by a fan. The fan just used it as an RSS feed for Instapundit posts, which was, of course, fine with Mr. Reynolds. However, when Instapundit made some site changes, that feed no longer worked and the fan was nowhere to be found. @Instapundit was non-functional. That did not suit! Instapundit readers need their Insty-fix on Twitter!

Even though Instapundit is trademarked, and having a “dead” Twitter feed devalues that branding, Twitter does not make it easy to fix such trademark issues.

@Instapundit gets his #Twitter #trademark problems solved. http://t.co/jdEUaE0f But how about everyone else? | LIKELIHOOD OF CONFUSION®

— Ron Coleman (@RonColeman) July 31, 2012

More from Likelihoodofconfusion.com:

Two weeks after that I got an email with the subject line “Twitter Support: update on Trademark Issue – (tradename)” at 5:14 on a Friday night. The email said, “Please read this carefully and respond to confirm that your report as currently submitted is complete and valid or reply with the additional information required as described below. We will not be able to investigate further and this ticket will be closed unless we receive a response to this message.” It then had the same questions as on the original form I had submitted. It did not clarify what question had not been answered to their satisfaction.

So I restated my case in slightly different terms, and sent back the email. I received the exact same email again at 7:12 p.m., and again at 9:12 p.m., and again at 12:05 a.m. the next morning. I responded to all of the requests except the last one because I was pretty sure by that time that the LOLcats had taken over Twitter’s automated system.

I waited another 2 weeks and sent an email to Twitter’s support email again, basically saying “what’s up?” and I almost immediately received a reply saying, and I quote, “You tried to update a request that has been closed. Please submit a new request at http://support.twitter.com/forms. You can also visit our help center at http://support.twitter.com for self-help solutions to common problems. Thanks!”