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Title: WordPress creator files countersuit against WP Engine over trademark
violations

Link: https://www.engadget.com/social-media/wordpre...

There's been another turn in WordPress creator Automattic's ongoing legal
battle with WordPress provider WP Engine. In a counterclaim Automattic filed
as part of WP Engine's lawsuit against the company, the WordPress creator
claims investment from private equity firm Silver Lake led WP Engine to
violate its trademarks and fail to contribute to the open-source WordPress
project.

Automattic believes that following a $250 million investment from Silver
Lake, which gave the firm a controlling interest in WP Engine, the hosting
provider "sought to inflate its valuation and engineer a quick, lucrative
exit." It allegedly did that, per the counterclaim, by describing itself as
the "WordPress Technology Company" and allowing its partners to refer to it
as "WordPress Engine," violations of the WordPress trademark. Automattic
claims products WP Engine released like "Core WordPress" and "Headless
WordPress" further obfuscated who created and developed the blogging
platform's technology, while the company also failed to commit a promised
"five percent of its resources to support the WordPress project."

The counterclaim goes on to say that Automattic and WordPress co-found Matt
Mullenweg tried to work out these issues with WP Engine by offering a "fair
trademark license," but the company only "pretended to engage in licensing
discussions," while actually delaying any kind of agreement because it would
"impact its earnings." Keeping earnings up was important to WP Engine because
Silver Lake was allegedly trying to sell WP Engine at a $2 billion valuation,
and had even made "overtures to Automattic" about it.

That's a different story than the one WP Engine spun in its original lawsuit
against Automattic, which accused Mullenweg of "abuse of power, extortion and
greed." WP Engine's original complaint claimed that Automattic asked the
company for eight percent of its monthly revenue as a royalty payment.
Mullenweg's attempts to punish WP Engine were seen as so aggressive at the
time that over 100 Automattic employees voluntarily left the company in
response. WP Engine won a preliminary injunction in response to its lawsuit,
but it seems like the story might be more complicated than it originally
appeared.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at
https://www.engadget.com/social-media/wordpre...
against-wp-engine-over-trademark-violations-182123827.html?src=rss

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