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

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 [...]

By: Moses Francis

Moses Francis — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 17:52:04 +0000

Yes, that’s an interesting discussion and one i pondered upon before buying my domain, but like you said i don’t think they would want to excercise their rights on blogs that are actually helping futher boost the usage of WordPress.

By: redwall_hp

redwall_hp — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 16:59:22 +0000

I don’t think it matters if you use the trademark in the domain. I’ve read in a couple places that it’s generally okay. There are plenty of websites that use trademarked names in their domains. I also believe that there was a precedent… Warner Brothers got all upset that people were starting Harry Potter websites on domains with trademarked names in them (author J.K. Rowling was okay with it, I believe, but technically WB somehow gained control over the trademarks). Today, there are plenty of Potter sites using trademarked names. I think it’s okay.

Disclaimer: I’m not a lawyer either.