WordPress Trademark Transfered From For-Profit Company, To Non-Profit Foundation
from the didn't-see-that-coming dept
We recently wrote about Twitter's smart and open trademark policy, in that it readily and freely licenses its trademark to many companies, with only a few small exceptions. It looks like blog provider WordPress is doing its own interesting trademark move as well. The company recently announced that it has transferred the WordPress trademark away from the company itself and given it to the WordPress Foundation, a non-profit organization charged with promoting access to WordPress and related open source projects. In other words, even if the company's current execs lose control over the company, the trademark itself won't be abused by new owners, since the mark will remain with the foundation. Given how often we see trademark law being abused these days, both of these examples of smart, forward-looking companies taking a much more progressive approach on trademark really is quite refreshing.
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Filed Under: non-profit, openness, trademark
Companies: automattic, wordpress
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People will have a choice to use whatever is more useful to them and like you said it is refreshing.
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To view it otherwise would be a significant mistake that could ultimately "kill" the mark.
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They did?
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