Comment by gkoberger
20 hours ago
I was curious what this meant, so I looked into it.
They asked Automatic.css to change their name: https://www.reddit.com/r/Wordpress/comments/1omrtrk/automatt...
Automatic.css is a paid CSS framework specifically for WordPress.
Legally speaking I have no opinion here, but I don't think it's as out-of-pocket as it sounds.
The article linked ( https://www.404media.co/automattic-automatic-trademark-matt-... ) is behind a paywall. But reading https://www.searchenginejournal.com/automattic-disputes-use-... it sounds like the claim 'Automattic attempted to claim it owns the word “automatic"' might not be accurate.
Yeah, regardless of other aspects of Automattic's behaviour, flagging that an identically-pronounced single letter variation of their registered company name might be a confusingly similar brand for a third party commercial service specifically designed to customise Automattic's product to adopt seems to be at the reasonable end of trademark disputes...
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Hard disagree. 404 has been awesome since being founded.
FUD. Don’t spread nonsense. They’re as rigorous as any other tech journo, you just have an axe to grind.
I don't see how this is FUD. Both a sibling comment and my parent pointed out that there's more to the story than simply "claiming the word automatic." They provided extra context (which the article didn't).
I am merely relating my experience that stuff like this is common with 404 Media. They'll omit nuances - whether intentionally or just being shoddy.
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