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by creatonez 639 days ago
> Highlighting Reddit and Twitter posts calling WPE "WordPress engine" is nonsense.

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.
1 comments
bastawhiz 639 days ago
You don't get to say "go ahead and use it," wait a decade, and then grumble that people are "confused". But even then, some random reddit or content farm post doesn't rise to the level of demonstrating "widespread consumer confusion". Hell, that content farm post looks generated by ChatGPT, should a hallucination be admissable as evidence of "confusion"?

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.

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creatonez 639 days ago
The surrounding context explains that there are hundreds more, and consumer surveying to back up the claim:

> A few of the hundreds of examples of actual confusion are attached as Exhibit C. Moreover, an objective empirical survey by a leading professional survey expert indicates that a significant degree of marketplace confusion is caused by your infringing use of the WORDPRESS and WOOCOMMERCE trademarks.

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> they might have a case

To be clear, I don't believe they have a case, I wasn't commenting with the intention of saying that. They only have a cease and desist letter at the moment. There is no admissing of evidence at this point, there are only letters.

If there were a case, there's probably a good chance they will lose due to what you describe -- unenforced trademarks.

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