In reply to John Greg.

Go register anything with WordPress in a domain and you’ll be contacted by Automattic lawyers to cease and desist.

That's not true, but seems to keep popping up in this thread. Here is some info that might clarify what actually happens here, and the thinking behind it.

First, if you hear from anyone it will probably be the Foundation lawyers, not Automattic ones.

Second, you would get a letter first, not a legal action. Many people who use "wordpress" in the domain are just not aware of our domain policy, which actually goes beyond pure trademark law, and the vast majority of people just update their domain when they find out about it. Many want to be be able to be linked from wordpress.org, participate in WordCamps, and many of the other benefits that come from following the community guidelines.

Third, not every use of "wordpress" in a domain is going to be a trademark violation, as Jeff sometimes uses the example, if you pack swords together and call it SwordPress dot com that's not going to be

Fourth, you don't have to attack everyone who might be violating your trademark to maintain it. If your legal counsel told you that, they're not the best. In fact it creates a lot more risk as you're opening yourself up to defensive legal action.

Fifth, there are some domains we haven't been able to get that people pointed out earlier in the thread, but just because you have a US trademark doesn't mean it applies in other countries.

Finally, battles have to be picked. If the foundation tried to go after everyone who had "wordpress" in the domain it would cost many millions of dollars We focus on sites that actually get traffic, and people who combine several things, like our logo or site design alongside the domain, in ways that will confuse users into thinking they're on an official/actual WordPress resource. (I don't think anyone can visit Themeshaper and think they're on DIYThemes, FWIW.) We also target people who are using confusion (even without "wordpress" in the domain) to distribute spam or malware, something we often do in concert with Google. If I were Chris, I would have gone after one of these sites first: https://cloudup.com/c1qJEJ0l1KA

I hope that helps clarify a bit about domains, trademark law, and what the Foundation actually does around it.