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Comment by mjburgess | Hacker News Reader

And if you do a wayback machine till a few months ago on that policy, you'll find they actively give permission for others to use "WP"

So the idea theyve been protecting their trademark is against their own trademark policy

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The claim is that, while WP is legal, it is “WordPress Engine” that was also used (in press releases or tolerated in the writings of 3rd parties), alongside “WordPress Core”, a plan which they later renamed.

I don't know if this changes anything, but I'm guessing a lawsuit is coming, so we shall see. But it would be great if people did some research before commenting on the story.

Whenever someone's asking for 8% of gross revenue, they've lost the plot regardless of the underlying claim. For most businesses that's easily much more they're taking in profit. One imagines were this agreement in place, WPEngine would have to raise their prices to levels beyond what any customer would pay.

Likewise, the use of "wordpress" as a trademark is clearly permitted when referring to wordpress; it's a common part of trademark law that you can refer to products in this manner. WPE customers do not think WPE is wordpress, it's a host.

cf., "The most trusted platform for WordPress" --https://wpengine.com

> “WordPress Engine” that was also used (in press releases)

Do you have examples of these since you've done so much research ?

Look forward to Automattic also going after companies using the term "WordPress Plugin" as well.

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