That's even ignoring the question of whether you can really argue that they're violating your trademark for calling their service "WordPress hosting" as shown in the exhibits. They're not passing something off as WordPress, it's literally WordPress that's being hosted.
Highlighting Reddit and Twitter posts calling WPE "WordPress engine" is nonsense. Highlighting a page where a WPE partner uses the wrong company name ("WordPress Engine") is embarrassing for WPE but still something of a reach. Highlighting a content farm post saying "WP Engine" stands for "WordPress Engine" is absurd. Making the argument that "WP" is covered by the trademark is ridiculous, especially when the replies on Twitter screenshot the receipts of WayBackMachine snapshots showing Automattic telling folks it's totally fine to use "WP".
I own a trademark for my business, and my lawyers had a (very gentle and kindly written) letter sent to two teenagers who started a podcast whose name infringed on the mark. If my lawyers care about that, Automattic has exactly no business trying to turn around on WPE at this point. This is just petty drama.
You are taking this part of the letter out of context by assuming all of the exhibit images are for the same purpose. Exhibit C is there to highlight consumer confusion caused by the issue -- which is relevant to a trademark dispute, because if there's no confusion there's usually no problem in the eyes of the law. They are not claiming that random internet posts means the company is officially using the name, but that posts like that are evidence of widespread consumer confusion in differentiating the brands.
Had Automattic cared at all eight or nine years ago, they might have a case. But saying that a few random people on the Internet got it wrong (maybe even because some random content farm posted nonsense) after ignoring the issue for so long is decidedly nonsense.
It's like Matt has lost his mind. Certainly makes me not want to support WordPress any more.
I think that most people on HN would agree that 1) the most likely outcome of this feud is negative for Automattic and 2) Matt should have reasonably known that from the start.
Is it some consequence of a passionate founder having the influence to choose emotions over business sense?
And "passion" leading to "boldness & assertiveness" is virtuous, however this behavior -- documented in WP Engine's PDF complaint -- is unnecessarily overblown + harmful to the public good/business health in my eyes.
Rest is me blathering, ignore if you don't want it:
Ego is clearly, to my mind, overriding analytical fidelity on the part of that Auto-matt business. In 2022 the CEO talked about a different company in the Word Press universe as "parasitic". https://masterwp.com/mullenweg-godaddy-is-an-existential-thr... It is not uncommon to see over-reach by CEOs, which is part of the job though does often fail to pass the smell test. And, sorry to those CEOs (especially those whom I know) who are Not sociopathic, buuuuut it's not uncommon for sociopathy to be present in CEO behavior. Boldness and assertiveness are great, don't get me wrong, but the specific terminology used by MM about WP Engine, (and this is IMHO), is nutso, plus the wacky-pants lecture he gave during a social-networking conference about WP etc, according to the WP Engine complaint, was just stupid.
WP Engine seems like a legit company doing legit things in a legit manner. Their legal brief, yesterday, laid out compelling evidence of unfair (IANAL) illegal behavior by Mattttttttttt and his Auto MATTTTTTT ic company. [Talk about "naming a company after myself is right".]
WP Engine sent “cease and desist” letter to Automattic (279 points, 1 day ago, 223 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41631912
Open Source, Trademarks, and WP Engine (30 points, 1 hours ago, 19 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41642597
