In reply to Carl Hancock.

@Carl, I never said it was a surprise. To anyone who's been following the news the last several years this is completely expected. And it is not underhanded, but it is definitely heavy handed. WooThemes/WooCommerce built their brand on the work of hundreds of people extending their products, building on top of them, but now they are strong enough not to need them anymore, so they are using a freshly filed trademark applications to shoo them away.

I get it, Automattic is the biggest bully in the sandbox that we call WordPress ecosystem. That does not mean I have to like every single thing they do. I am not concerned that they use the trademark laws to deal with unethical people, who are trying to earn a profit from work of other people. But that also means I am banned from using Woo prefix to any of my own extensions. And I am not thrilled about that.