A WordPress lawsuit was the third most-trafficked story on Domain Name Wire last year.
Coming in at #3 on last year’s most-read posts was a lawsuit filed by WordPress foundation.
WordPress Foundation sued the owner of TheWordPressHelpers.com (and other domains), alleging the domains infringed WordPress’ trademarks.
The group has guidelines for how people can use the WordPress trademarks. One of the rules is that they can’t be used in second level domain names.
WordPress Foundation has filed UDRPs to get domain names back in the past. In this case, it went to the courts because domain name owner Edward Jeffrey Yablon played a game of chicken with WordPress: he filed opposition proceedings with the USPTO to try to halt one of WordPress’ trademark applications.
Yablon eventually relented, handing the domains over to WordPress.
I think this article struck a nerve because the use of WordPress marks is a hot-button issue. WordPress probably wasn’t consistent early on, and there’s a lot of debate about what’s fair when it comes to the WordPress name.
vicace says
not cool from wordpresss. dont they realize that they are sueing their own fans ???
Nameably says
That’s a bad approach. This community made Wordpress what it is today.
Debbie Wiseman! (@djwnl) says
They allow people to use WP in a domain name and plenty of sites comply and thrive. No reason for them not to enforce this.
Brand Name Ideas (@brandnameideas) says
I agree – “WP” is pretty much synonymous with “Wordpress”. In fact if you bing “wp themes”, you’ll notice that it will bold the phrases “wp themes” AND “wordpress themes” in the search results – not to mention that the phrase “free wp themes” gets googled 1900 times per month. And if you ask me, sites named, for example, “freewpthemes.com” look nicer than the long “freewordpressthemes.com”
Cloudways says
This is a negative approach and it ruins the brand in the long run. But a good action taken.