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by runako 614 days ago
IANAL but if Automattic decides that its name can't be used in the context of third-party hosting, that could be a problem for the preconfigured installer feature of Lightsail. I don't know how big an impact it would be for them, but presumably it's somewhat important given they highlight the preconfigured installer on the site. Many other hosts offer this as well.

GoDaddy has a menu item for "WordPress hosting," which is exactly what got WPE into trouble. Namecheap has "WordPress" in its navbar.

Beyond hosting, the theme retailers (like Themeforest) could find themselves in the crosshairs. The plugin developers.

Anybody who uses "WordPress" in their marketing. If you sell an add-on for WordPress, you probably need to say "WordPress" somewhere in your collateral, and this may mean you own Automattic a percentage of your revenue.

The problem is nobody knows, because the proposed rules are unwritten. Working in the WordPress ecosystem just had an unquantifiable amount of platform risk added, where there was effectively none at the beginning of the year.
1 comments
ValentineC 614 days ago
> The problem is nobody knows, because the proposed rules are unwritten.

Under US law, trademarks can be used by other companies under fair use:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use_(U.S._trademark_law)

It'll ultimately be up to the courts to decide what the extent of this fair use is.

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belorn 613 days ago
If you are a car repair shop, it would be fairly difficult if you could not name the brand of cars that you support. If you call yourself "Ford Repairs" you might get into trouble, but saying that you can change oil on a Fords seems fairly clear as to be permitted under fair use.

From what I see it seems a fairly common practice that companies get explicit trademark permissions if they are an official retailer, official supplier, have employees that is official trained, or has some other direct relationship with the trademark holder. Companies without such permissions have to rely on fair use rules. Retailers and webshops generally also list what product or brands that they sell without being in conflict with trademark.

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runako 614 days ago
> It'll ultimately be up to the courts to decide what the extent of this fair use is.

That's the unquantifiable platform risk that has been added.

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