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by beerandt 627 days ago
The whole standard for trademark law is whether it causes confusion in commerce.

Sounds like they might have a not-great ip lawyer.

Your don't have to claim WP to claim it's being marketed as an abbreviation for your trademark, within your market.

I'm not saying it's a winning argument, but better than whatever the legal framing/ posturing of 'WP isn't our TM' is. Bad PR, if not bad legal take.
1 comments
patmcc 627 days ago
Except Wordpress even explicitly suggests using wp in the domain: https://wordpress.org/about/domains/

>>>we ask if you’re going to start a site about WordPress or related to it that you not use “WordPress” in the domain name. Try using “wp” instead, or another variation...

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beerandt 626 days ago
Yea- same point though. Bad IP advice / strategy.

Don't condone confusing ip policy if you don't want to end up with confusing product names, especially in a resurgence of 'the domain name is the product' of unlimited tlds.

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patmcc 626 days ago
Definitely bad IP advice, but I think it helps WP Engine to be able to say "look even all the various 'official' Wordpress sites said our name was fine for years".
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