I was curious what this meant, so I looked into it.
replyThey 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.
replyYeah, 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...
reply404 Media usually has fairly shoddy journalism. Take everything they say with a grain of salt.
replyHard disagree. 404 has been awesome since being founded.
replyFUD. Don’t spread nonsense. They’re as rigorous as any other tech journo, you just have an axe to grind.
replyI 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).
replyI am merely relating my experience that stuff like this is common with 404 Media. They'll omit nuances - whether intentionally or just being shoddy.
The article links to an entire separate article about automatic.css.
replyThat's how you can tell the article isn't giving you the full picture.
reply"Windows", "Word" and "Excel" are just plain English words, but it appears you can trademark them for specific industry. Maybe you have to make it more specific. Like "Microsoft Windows"?
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