The latest round in the battle between WordPress owner Automattic and WP Engine was won by the latter with California District Court judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín issuing an injunction to prevent Automattic blocking WP Engine’s access to WordPress.org resources and continuing to interfere with its plugins.
“While Defendants characterize WP Engine’s harm as self-imposed because it built its business around a website ‘that it had no contractual right to use…’ Defendants’ role in helping that harm materialize through their recent targeted actions toward WPEngine, and no other competitor, cannot be ignored,” she wrote.
Where this all came from. WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg had publicly complained about trademark violations, alleging that WP Engine was illegitimately monetizing them while misleading consumers to believe that there is a formal affiliation between WP Engine and WordPress. Cease and desist letters were exchanged. Then WP Engine filed a lawsuit against Mullenweg and Auttomatic accusing them of extortion.
Why we care. A lot of marketing (and news) organizations rely on WordPress, still the dominant player in the CMS market. Anything which makes the content creation journey bumpier is regrettable. Mullenweg has yet to rage about the decision on his blog, but we’re keeping an eye on it.
Dig deeper: WordPress moves to ban WP Engine from accessing its resources
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