The WordPress Trademark Policy

Back in 2015, I described the WordPress Trademark Policy as it then stood in Using the WordPress trademarks for your business, product or service. That post:

• explained what trademarks are;
• discussed Automattic Inc’s WordPress trademarks and how they were being enforced;
• described Automattic’s transfer of WordPress trademarks to the WordPress Foundation; and
• discussed the care that’s required when using WordPress trademarks, contrasting that with the use of ‘WP’ or ‘Press’.

Now, as Matt’s/Automattic’s criticisms of WP Engine continue, the WordPress Foundation’s Trademark Policy has been updated, as follows:

For the reasons I’ll discuss below, these changes are interesting, surprising, and in my view completely unnecessary.

WordPress Foundation owns trademark, but Automattic is exclusive commercial licensee

First, we learn that Automattic is the exclusive licensee of the WordPress trademark for commercial use. Perhaps others were aware of this. I was not.

Let’s go back in time a little. As I explained in my post in 2015:

“On 9 September 2010, Matt announced that Automattic had transferred the WordPress trademark to the WordPress Foundation, “the non-profit dedicated to promoting and ensuring access to WordPress and related open source projects in perpetuity”. As Matt noted on his blog, this meant that the most central piece of WordPress’s identity had become fully independent from any company.

This was, as Matt noted, a pretty dig deal, as Automattic – a commercial organisation – had donated one of its most valuable assets and ceded control of it to a non-profit organisation.

Why did Automattic do this? This wasn’t, after all, the approach that most commercial enterprises would take to a valuable business asset. The answer to why Automattic did it is this: it was in the best interests of the wider WordPress community. This is how Matt put it:

‘Automattic might not always be under my influence, so from the beginning I envisioned a structure where for-profit, non-profit, and not-just-for-profit could coexist and balance each other out. It’s important for me to know that WordPress will be protected and that the brand will continue to be a beacon of open source freedom regardless of whether any company is as benevolent as Automattic has been thus far.’”

Returning now to 2024, I find it somewhat interesting that, despite the WordPress Foundation owning the WordPress trademark, it has (it appears) granted an exclusive licence to Automattic for commercial use, with the right to sublicense use of the trademark. In substance, this seems to confer complete control on use of the WordPress trademark for commercial purposes on Automattic. I am not implying or insinuating anything in pointing this out. I just find it interesting. You be the judge.

Use of ‘WP’

As you can see from the tracked comparison above, the Trademark Policy used to say that the abbreviation ‘WP’ is not covered by the WordPress trademarks and people could use it in any way they see fit. Now, whilst the Policy still states that the abbreviation ‘WP’ is not covered by the WordPress trademarks, we see the Policy trying to tell people not to use ‘WP’ in a way that confuses people, from which it launches into another attack on WP Engine.

To castigate WP Engine by reference only to the company not having donated to the WordPress Foundation is surprising. The company has clearly done a range of other things to contribute to the community, as I discussed in Thoughts on the attack on WP Engine, from hosting and sponsoring events, to maintaining free plugins, Torque, Local, and a rich Resource Center).

Neither the WordPress Foundation nor Automattic is legally entitled to tell people what to do with the letters ‘WP’. There is no trademark over those letters in relation to WordPress and they have been in wide use for at least 15 years.

As for the notion that ‘WP Engine’ has been confused for ‘WordPress Engine’, that seems to be pushing the bounds of credulity. As a long-time customer of WP Engine, I am familiar with their brand and how it has evolved over time. I have never confused ‘WP Engine’ for ‘WordPress Engine’, and it has always been clear to me that they are a WordPress host, competing with the likes of Bluehost, Kinsta, GoDaddy and all the other WordPress hosts out there, including WordPress.com itself.

Did the company choose a name that helps people realise it specialises in WordPress hosting? Yes, but in my view there was nothing wrong with that. Many, many companies have done exactly that over the years with all manner of WordPress-related businesses and interests. Here are some examples:

WPBeginner
WPMU DEV
WPForms
WPWeb Infotech
WPRiders
WPExplorer
WPCrafter
WP Rocket
WP Mail SMTP
WP Job Manager
WP All Import
WPML (WordPress Multilingual Plugin)
WPCustomize
WPEverest
WP Activity Log
WP-Optimize
WPSiteCare
WP Buffs
WP All Import
WP Media
WP Simple Pay
WP Reset
WP User Frontend
WP Quiz
WPRocket
WPLift
WPFusion
WPTavern
WPTouch
WP and Legal Stuff

A short time ago, Automattic posted on ‘X’ to say:

“We want to make this clear: Using ‘WP’ is not a trademark issue.”

Yes, correct. But if that’s the case, why amend the Trademark Policy in the way shown above? In my view, there was no need to do that.