Comments on: Should WordPress Fan Sites Worry About The WordPress Trademark?

By: Omar

Omar — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 16:17:48 +0000

Technically, They can shut you down if they can prove that your website confuses people with respect to their trademark, but it’s stickier than that.

Say DisneyToys.com was registered and used by someone other than Disney.

If Disney can prove that DisneyToys.com is confusing enough that visitors can confuse the brand by it and that it’s seemingly part of the Disney brand, then it’s a violation and they can win. That’s all up to the judge.

But I think this can happen with or without the explicit use of Disney in the domain name anyway. It’s probably much more messy when the trademarked name is used in the domain name explicitly.

The other issue is whether or not a company will invest time in going after you. I think if most domain names help promote the brand they probably will let it go say like a blogger, but that’s just a guess.

A good way is to think empathetically, imagine you trademarked a name like Dokyoki. That’s your trademark. You sell baby doll toys. Someone decides to register DokyokiToys.com, would you feel threatened? Would you get a lawyer to prove that it’s confusion on your trademark. The questions now get bigger: what is the person using the site for? Are they taking away market share? Etc.

You can see it’s sticky.

My recommendation is to create your OWN brand and just avoid it. Why spend effort to even possibly promote someone else’s brand (unless that’s your particular interest) Why build something so big with the fear someone can try heckling you over.

I don’t think users care anymore what your site is called; They care about the content.

Disclaimer: This is anecdotal. I’m not a lawyer. These are just my opinions. I don’t claim my opinion is right. I just read a lot.

By: WordPress Hey

WordPress Hey — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 05:49:40 +0000

Automattic donated the WordPress trademark WordPress Foundation…

Automattic, the company behind WordPress, has donated the WordPress trademark to the non-profit WordPress Foundation…….

By: WpHey

WpHey — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 05:49:13 +0000

It’s good for both WordPress community and Automattic, I think.

By: Using WordPress in Your Domain Name? Don’t! « Lorelle on WordPress

Using WordPress in Your Domain Name? Don’t! « Lorelle on WordPress — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 03:46:55 +0000

[...] Should WordPress Fan Sites Worry About The WordPress Trademark? – WPHacks [...]

By: Aditya

Aditya — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 18:29:54 +0000

I don’t think it makes such a big difference

By: Kyle Eslick

Kyle Eslick — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 12:53:02 +0000

@ John Huff – The term wp is NOT trademarked and can almost be considered generic (making it impossible to trademark, such as terms like football or shopping).

Also, sites like this help promote WordPress and make more people use it, so they would have now reason to have a problem with it.

If you launched a site using “wp” that was NOT about the WordPress subject, I still don’t think there is anything that could be done about it because they don’t own the term “wp” and it could have quite a few meanings.

By: John Hoff

John Hoff — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 05:08:01 +0000

This might be a dumb question since you have “wp” in your url, but what if you use WpMyService.com? Even though you mention on your site that you are in no way affiliated with WordPress, in your research, could this be a problem?

Has WordPress taken any steps to prevent the use of Wp in url and business names?

By: Mary Marsh

Mary Marsh — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 07:13:44 +0000

Can anyone tell me if trademarking is necessary for a business or a logo? Much appreciated.

By: Truden

Truden — Wed, 21 May 2008 13:16:04 +0000

A little late I came across this old article but only now it came to be my personal problem
http://WordPress.mu/ uses the trademark name “WordPress” as a fan site and Automattic Inc. lodge a complain against it.
Here is my opinion about it.

By: Une semaine avec Wordpress #2

Une semaine avec Wordpress #2 — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 16:52:34 +0000

[...] utiliser leur “marque” comme mot clé dans un nom de domaine ! En effet, WordPress interdit formellement tout utilisation du mot “wordpress” sur un nom de domain…. Autant dire qu’il y en a un paquet qui devrait en changer si les gars de WordPress décidait [...]