WordPress Cap & Trade; ?

[zamoose]

So here's a thought: the marginal utility of the capital_p_dangit() was to enforce the proper word mark for WordPress, with some hand-waving being done about "enforcing trademark" issues.

So, if we're concerned about this and about not allowing for dilution of the WP mark, why wasn't a decision made to append an ™ to all invocations of WordPress as well? If we're concerned about the mark itself, oughtn't that get enforced too?

[Ryan]

I don't think it's the registration of the trademark that was the concern. It was dilution of the trademark/brand which is unconnected to the issue of trademark registration.

[zamoose]

@Ryan:
But that's my point. Every time I write WordPress, I'm using the trademark, so oughtn't there be an™ appended?

[chipbennett]

I don't think it's the registration of the trademark that was the concern. It was dilution of the trademark/brand which is unconnected to the issue of trademark registration.

A lower-case "p" in "WordPress" does not, in a legal sense, dilute the trademark. As an argument for the filter's inclusion in WordPress core, protection against trademark dilution is utterly specious.

(If the inclusion of the filter in WordPress core were genuinely borne out of a desire to protect the trademark against dilution, I find it extremely difficult to understand why hundreds of URLs - that actually dilute the WordPress trademark - have been allowed to remain.)

In reality, this filter exists in WordPress core for no other reason than to scratch a pedantic itch of Matt Mullenweg. Period.

[Ryan]

@Ryan:
But that's my point. Every time I write WordPress, I'm using the trademark, so oughtn't there be an™ appended?

How would adding an ™ help WordPress?

Capitalising the P at least helps keep the trademark in use rather than having some other (albeit darned similar) word used instead. There's some logic there, they just have a slightly flawed approach of forcing people to do it.

I'm not a fan of the capital_p_dangit() function by any means, but I think adding ™ is even worse. Very few people would want to intentionally add ™ to the name, so why would we want it added automatically?