We have long been covering the latest #wpdrama between Matt Mullenweb, co-founder of WordPress, and WP Engine, a renowned WordPress hosting company. After the matter was taken to court, Mullenweb suffered a harsh defeat in the preliminary proceedings of the main trial. Now, the news is that the problems are increasing as the WordPress co-founder has received two fresh blows.
The most recent development refers to a new lawsuit aiming to become a class action, which alleges that Mullenweg, in his nuclear war against WP Engine, committed a series of infringements regarding the hosting company’s clients, claiming that the co-founder of WordPress’s actions were not genuine efforts to safeguard the proper use of the WordPress brand, but rather a pretext to deprive WP Engine of its customers.
This new lawsuit, which appears to be orchestrated by WP Engine, asserts that Mullenweg’s actions through the WordPress.org foundation caused service disruptions, financial losses and potential security risks for a large number of clients, meaning it could become a class action with greater legal weight. As a result, any WP Engine customer whose service was interrupted or whose security was compromised might be able to seek damages from Mullenweg.
Another setback related to the WordPress Brand
Furthermore, the WordPress co-founder previously suffered a new blow, this time concerning the use of the WordPress trademark. According to Search Engine Journal, the WordPress foundation saw its attempt to control terms such as “Managed WordPress” and “Hosted WordPress”—precisely those widely used by WP Engine—come to nothing.
The United States Patent Office has rejected the possibility of registering these expressions (and therefore charging for their use), arguing that both phrases, represent a descriptive reference to the products and thus cannot be trademarked.
The good news for WordPress is that this is not a definitive ruling by the Patent Office, and so it can still be appealed.
A large part of the community, which profits from hosting-based services and paid plugins, is fighting for greater control over WordPress, greater transparency, and a new leadership structure for the open-source WordPress project, although it appears that such a development is not on the horizon.
* Original article written in Spanish, translated with chatGPT and reviewed in English by Jorge Mediavilla.
Leave a Reply