Matt deleted this question from his personal blog. That action tells us everything we need to know about the status of WP trademarks.

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I posed the following question on Matt's (/u/photomatt) personal blog in response to his post about DHH. In that post, he appears to reassert the notion, without any evidence, that the Foundation can revoke the trademarks from Automattic. Here's the text of my comment:

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Matt. According to public records [0], the license granted to you by the WordPress Foundation for the trademarks is "perpetual", "irrevocable" and "exclusive". There is no language in that document limiting your use. Further, there exists no "commercial use" vs "non-commercial use" clause, or other exception for wordpress.org as you and your lawyer have publicly claimed.

Now, if there are legal documents that prove otherwise, I invite you to present them to the community. That would be immensely helpful in helping us understand the trademark status. As it stands right now, the only thing the community has to go on is the "perpetual", "irrevocable" and "exclusive" part of the document you signed that is public record.

I invite you to clear up this matter publicly: This is hereby an open request for you to present evidence support your claims around the trademarks.

Specifically: We, the community would like to see evidence that the Foundation can revoke Automattic's license as you have suggested here and elsewhere. We would further like to see evidence that the Foundation has granted wordpress.org a license.

We look forward to your response.

[0] https://assignments.uspto.gov/assignments/assignment-tm-4233-0808.pdf

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Here are the receipts: https://imgur.com/a/ltLRvSI

Matt, I know you're going to read this. Please consider responding here or elsewhere so that the community can have the FACTS surrounding the legal status of the trademark. Failure to do so will only serve to fuel what has long been suspected: there is no means by which the foundation can revoke the trademark license from Automattic as you have repeatedly claimed.

Edit: I made a minor edit. Lest anyone accuse me of making threats again simply because I (gasp!) edited my post, a screenshot has been made and is available upon request.

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3 Comments
  1. Hmmm. It’s very “interesting” that people would downvote a question asking for clarity around *the* most important topic in our community right now. I wonder why someone would do that?

    This is nothing more than an open opportunity for Matt to present clear and irrefutable evidence to support his claims about the trademark.

    Remember folks [Sunlight Is the Best Disinfectant](http://archives.cpajournal.com/2003/1203/nv/nv2.htm).

  2. Full disclosure: I’ve been critical of Matt Mullenweg and his handling of the commercial licensing of the WordPress trademark, along with his recent actions. That said, I think there’s a bit of misunderstanding here when it comes to the trademark license and what we can reasonably expect.

    The trademark license filed with the USPTO generally doesn’t contain the full licensing agreement between the two parties. What gets submitted is more of an assignment or summary of rights rather than the full legal contract with all its clauses and stipulations. Even in agreements that are termed “irrevocable,” there can still be termination clauses within the private licensing contract.

    With that being said, Automattic and the WordPress Foundation are under no obligation to share their private licensing agreement with the public. All that’s required by law is the public record of the existing trademark license itself, not the full terms that govern the relationship between them. As much as you and I would like to see that agreement, if I were in either party’s position, I wouldn’t share it unless I was compelled to do so during the course of litigation.

 

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