News: 0179863412

  ARM Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life (Terry Pratchett, Jingo)

WordPress Maker Files Counterclaims Against WP Engine Over Trademark Use (techcrunch.com)

(Friday October 24, 2025 @05:22PM (msmash) from the tussle-continues dept.)


Automattic has [1]filed counterclaims against WP Engine in a lawsuit the hosting company [2]initiated in October 2024 . The counterclaims accuse WP Engine of trademark infringement and deceptive marketing practices. After private equity firm Silver Lake invested $250 million in WP Engine, the hosting company began calling itself "The WordPress Technology Company" and allowed partners to refer to it as "WordPress Engine," the lawsuit says. WP Engine also launched products named "Core WordPress" and "Headless WordPress."

The counterclaims allege that WP Engine promised to commit 5% of its resources to the WordPress ecosystem but failed to keep those promises. Automattic contends that WP Engine engaged in trademark violations to avoid licensing fees that would have affected the company's earnings and valuation. Silver Lake sought to sell WP Engine at a $2 billion valuation but could not find a buyer. The filing notes that potential buyers included Automattic. The counterclaims also assert that WP Engine degraded product quality and removed essential features to reduce costs during this period.



[1] https://techcrunch.com/2025/10/24/automattic-files-counterclaims-against-wp-engine-in-wordpress-lawsuit-alleging-trademark-misuse/

[2] https://yro.slashdot.org/story/24/10/03/1354214/wp-engine-sues-wordpress-for-libel-extortion



A plague ... (Score:2)

by PPH ( 736903 )

... on both your houses!

Re: (Score:1)

by Curunir_wolf ( 588405 )

Exactly.

Rich people's problems.... (Score:2)

by registrations_suck ( 1075251 )

I'm glad I don't face any of the problems mentioned in the summary. That must be just awful!

Emoji JOIN Flag (Score:1)

by kurt_cordial ( 6208254 )

...aand your recipient's system crashes.

Ditch Wordpress (Score:1)

by SmaryJerry ( 2759091 )

Only two things have made me want to delete word press are the idiot who runs the thing and breaks websites so he can blackmail people who use his open source software, and Wordpress addons. If I knew that anything other than basic functionality requires buying an additional addon then I would have just used Shopify, Squarespace, or Wix for any website and paid the $10/month.

PE vultures are at it again (Score:2)

by bubblyceiling ( 7940768 )

Silverlake ⦠no wonder there is so much online hate towards Matt.

Matt's real problem ... (Score:2)

by cascadingstylesheet ( 140919 )

... is that WP Engine hosting, while still kinda weird and non-standard, is better than Auttttttomattttic's wordpress.com hosting.

Slashdot needs new category of articles... (Score:2)

by Fallen Kell ( 165468 )

I believe that it really needs to add "Enshittrification" as a category/tag. Part of this very lawsuit is about the enshittrification at WP Engine, after, surprise, a private equity group bought/buyout and stripping of functionality/features all in the name of cost cutting before parting out/selling out all the rest of the company it bought. I can't think of a better example of enshittrification than this kind of behavior.

Gordon's Law:
If you think you have the solution, the question was poorly phrased.