Automattic Is Not an Owner of the WordPress Marks It Asserted in Court, a Judge Rules
A September 2026 federal court ruling has clarified an important question in the ongoing WP Engine–Automattic dispute: Automattic and Matt Mullenweg cannot assert the WordPress trademark claims in their own right.
The ongoing legal battle between WP Engine, Automattic and Matt Mullenweg has already become one of the most significant disputes in the WordPress ecosystem.
Now, a new ruling from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California has added another important development.
On September 24, 2026, Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín ruled on multiple motions to dismiss in the case and held that Automattic and Mullenweg are neither owners nor registrants of the WordPress marks at issue, and do not possess a sufficiently exclusive license to assert those trademark claims in their own right.
The ruling does not mean that the WordPress trademarks have no owner.
It also does not mean that the WordPress trademarks are invalid.
And it does not decide that WP Engine has won the underlying trademark dispute.
Instead, the ruling addresses a narrower but important legal question:
Who has the legal standing to assert the WordPress trademark claims?
For hosting providers, WordPress agencies, developers and businesses operating in the WordPress ecosystem, that distinction matters.
What Did the Judge Actually Rule?
The case is WP Engine, Inc. v. Automattic Inc. et al., Case No. 24-cv-06917-AMO, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
WP Engine originally sued Automattic and Mullenweg following the escalating dispute over WordPress trademark licensing, access to WordPress.org and the relationship between WP Engine and the WordPress ecosystem.
Automattic, Mullenweg, the WordPress Foundation and WooCommerce subsequently filed counterclaims against WP Engine, including claims involving:
- Federal trademark infringement
- False advertising
- Unfair competition
- Common-law trademark infringement
- Trademark dilution
- California unfair competition
WP Engine asked the court to dismiss those counterclaims.
The judge largely allowed the trademark-related counterclaims to continue—but with one important limitation.
The court dismissed the trademark claims to the extent that Automattic and Mullenweg attempted to assert them in their own right.
The reason was straightforward.
The court found that Automattic and Mullenweg:
- Were not the owners of the marks at issue;
- Were not the registrants; and
- Did not possess a “truly exclusive license” granting all substantial trademark rights, including the ability to exclude the licensor from using the marks.
That distinction is the heart of the ruling.
Who Owns the WordPress Trademarks?
This is where the situation can become confusing.
Automattic has previously explained that the WordPress Foundation owns the WordPress trademarks, while Automattic holds commercial licensing rights.
In a 2024 explanation of the trademark structure, Automattic said that the WordPress Foundation owns the marks for non-commercial purposes and that Automattic has commercial rights under its licensing arrangement.
Earlier court filings likewise described the WordPress Foundation as owning three WordPress trademarks, with Automattic having retained a commercial-use license after assigning the trademarks to the Foundation.
That means the important distinction is:
Trademark ownership ≠ trademark license ≠ standing to bring every type of trademark claim.
A company can have substantial commercial rights without being the legal owner of the trademark.
And that is exactly the distinction that became important in this case.
Why Does “Standing” Matter?
In legal disputes, it isn’t enough to claim that a trademark was infringed.
The party bringing the claim must have the legal right to bring that particular claim.
Federal trademark law generally gives enforcement rights to the trademark owner or registrant, subject to specific circumstances involving qualifying exclusive licensees.
The judge applied that principle here.
The court cited the requirement that a party seeking to assert these trademark rights must either be the owner, registrant or possess a sufficiently exclusive license conveying the relevant substantial trademark rights.
The court therefore concluded that Automattic and Mullenweg could not assert the relevant trademark counterclaims in their own right.
That is a significant clarification.
But it is important not to overstate it.
The WordPress Trademark Claims Are Not Gone
One of the easiest ways to misunderstand the ruling would be to say:
“The judge ruled that Automattic cannot enforce WordPress trademarks.”
That is too broad.
The actual ruling is narrower.
The trademark counterclaims brought by the group of counterclaimants were not thrown out entirely.
Instead, the court dismissed them only insofar as Automattic and Mullenweg attempted to assert them in their own right.
The WordPress Foundation remains a party to the counterclaims.
Therefore, the ruling does not eliminate the underlying trademark dispute.
This is a procedural and standing-related decision—not a final determination that WP Engine did or did not infringe the WordPress trademarks.
Why This Matters to Hosting Companies
The case has particular relevance to the hosting industry.
Thousands of hosting companies sell services described using phrases such as:
- WordPress hosting
- WordPress managed hosting
- WordPress optimization
- WordPress security
- WordPress maintenance
- WordPress VPS hosting
- WordPress migration
- WordPress support
The WordPress name is deeply embedded in the hosting ecosystem.
Therefore, any uncertainty surrounding trademark enforcement can have commercial consequences.
Hosting providers need to distinguish between:
Using “WordPress” to identify compatibility
and
Using “WordPress” in a way that could imply ownership, sponsorship, endorsement or affiliation.
Automattic itself has stated that businesses can use the WordPress name to accurately describe compatibility—for example, saying that they develop sites built on WordPress—while objecting to certain uses of the mark in company names, domains, product names or service names.
That distinction is important for hosting companies.
The Bigger Issue: Who Controls the WordPress Ecosystem?
The trademark dispute is only one part of a much larger conflict.
At the center of the WP Engine–Automattic dispute are questions about:
Who controls access to WordPress.org?
Who controls the WordPress trademarks?
What rights do commercial companies have when building businesses around open-source WordPress?
Can access to ecosystem infrastructure be conditioned on commercial or licensing arrangements?
Where is the line between protecting an open-source project and using ecosystem control to influence competitors?
These questions are much larger than a trademark dispute.
They affect hosting providers, plugin developers, theme companies, agencies and other businesses whose products depend on WordPress infrastructure.
The Antitrust Claims Are Also Back
The September 24 ruling contained another major development.
Judge Martínez-Olguín revived four antitrust claims that she had previously dismissed.
These include allegations involving:
- Monopolization under Section 2 of the Sherman Act
- Attempted monopolization
- Illegal tying under Section 1 of the Sherman Act
- California Cartwright Act tying claims
The judge found that WP Engine had plausibly alleged relevant markets involving WordPress-specific hosting, plugins and plugin distribution.
The court also found that WP Engine’s allegations of increased prices and decreased quality were sufficient, at the pleading stage, to establish allegations of market power through direct evidence.
That does not mean WP Engine has won the antitrust case.
It means those claims can proceed beyond the motion-to-dismiss stage.
That is a major difference.
The Court Did Reject One Important WP Engine Claim
The ruling was not entirely favorable to WP Engine.
The judge dismissed WP Engine’s Computer Fraud and Abuse Act claim against Automattic and Mullenweg without leave to amend.
WP Engine had argued that the defendants’ actions surrounding access to WordPress.org and the licensing dispute amounted to extortionate conduct.
The court rejected that theory.
The judge concluded that WP Engine had not plausibly alleged a preexisting right to access WordPress.org or the related trademarks in perpetuity for free, and held that demanding payment for services or rights with objective value did not constitute extortion under the statute.
So the latest ruling is a mixed result.
WP Engine gained an important antitrust victory while losing its CFAA claim.
And Automattic gained the dismissal of that CFAA claim but lost its attempt to have the antitrust claims dismissed at this stage.
Why the Ruling Is Important for the Open-Source Community
WordPress occupies an unusual position.
It is open-source software, but it also exists within a much larger commercial ecosystem.
Around WordPress there are:
- Hosting companies
- Plugin developers
- Theme developers
- Agencies
- SaaS companies
- Ecommerce businesses
- Consultants
- Security providers
- Performance companies
- Managed WordPress platforms
Many of these businesses generate substantial revenue from WordPress.
The challenge is determining how the ecosystem’s commercial interests should coexist with the principles of open-source software.
The trademark dispute highlights this tension.
A trademark can be used to protect a brand from misleading or confusing uses.
But companies building businesses around open-source software also need predictable rules about how they can describe compatibility with that software.
That predictability is particularly important for hosting companies.
What Hosting Providers Should Learn From This
The case provides several practical lessons for hosting businesses.
1. Review Your WordPress Branding
Hosting companies should audit how the WordPress name appears across:
- Website titles
- Hosting plans
- Domains
- Product names
- Advertising
- Logos
- Social-media profiles
- Documentation
- Reseller materials
The goal should be to clearly communicate compatibility without creating an inaccurate impression of affiliation or endorsement.
2. Separate Compatibility From Branding
There is an important difference between:
“WordPress Hosting”
and branding a proprietary service as though it were an official WordPress product.
Businesses should understand the applicable trademark policies and obtain appropriate legal advice when their usage is commercially significant.
3. Keep Licensing Documentation
If your business has a commercial trademark license or other agreement, maintain clear documentation showing:
- Who owns the trademark
- Who granted the license
- What rights were granted
- Whether sublicensing is permitted
- What geographic territory applies
- What products or services are covered
- Whether the license can be terminated
The WP Engine litigation demonstrates why these distinctions can become extremely important.
4. Don’t Assume “Open Source” Means “Everything Is Free to Use”
The WordPress software is open source.
That does not mean every associated trademark, logo, domain or commercial brand right is unrestricted.
Software licensing and trademark law are separate areas.
A business can have rights under an open-source software license while still needing to comply with trademark rules.
What This Could Mean for WordPress Hosting
The long-term significance of this dispute may extend beyond WP Engine.
If courts ultimately establish clearer boundaries around:
software access + trademarks + platform control + competition
the result could influence how hosting companies and other WordPress businesses structure their operations.
This is especially important because WordPress is not simply a piece of software.
It is an ecosystem.
A hosting provider depends on:
- WordPress core
- WordPress.org
- Plugin distribution
- Theme distribution
- Updates
- APIs
- Security advisories
- Community infrastructure
Any change in access or commercial terms can therefore have effects beyond one individual company.
What Happens Next?
The September 24 order does not end the case.
The surviving claims will continue through further litigation.
The court’s current schedule includes additional proceedings leading toward a jury trial scheduled for October 19, 2027, according to the latest public reporting on the case.
That means the legal battle is likely to remain relevant to the hosting industry for some time.
The most important questions may ultimately be answered later in the case:
- What rights does Automattic actually possess under its WordPress trademark license?
- What rights can the WordPress Foundation enforce?
- Did the defendants improperly use control over WordPress.org?
- Did their actions violate antitrust law?
- How should WordPress-related trademarks be used by commercial competitors?
- What boundaries should exist between open-source infrastructure and commercial control?
Those questions remain unresolved.
Final Thoughts
The headline “Automattic Is Not an Owner of the WordPress Marks” is attention-grabbing—but the legal reality is more nuanced.
The September 24, 2026 ruling did not declare that nobody owns the WordPress trademarks.
It did not invalidate the trademarks.
It did not find that WP Engine had won the trademark dispute.
Instead, Judge Martínez-Olguín ruled that Automattic and Matt Mullenweg cannot assert the relevant trademark counterclaims in their own right because they are neither owners nor registrants and do not hold a sufficiently exclusive license giving them the necessary trademark rights.
At the same time, the court allowed WP Engine’s four antitrust claims to proceed.
That combination makes the ruling particularly significant.
For hosting providers, the lesson is simple:
Open-source software, trademarks, platform access and commercial rights are not the same thing.
WordPress may be open source, but the commercial ecosystem surrounding it still operates within a complex framework of trademark, licensing and competition law.
And as the WP Engine–Automattic dispute moves toward trial, the decisions made in this case could have implications well beyond the two companies involved.
For the hosting industry, the real story is not simply who owns the WordPress name.
It is about who controls access to the ecosystem built around it—and what limits the law places on that control.
