WP Engine has updated their claims against Matt Mullenweg and Automattic based on documents received during the discovery phase of the trial. In these documents WP Engine found that Matt and Automattic had a list of 10 hosting companies they planned to go after for trademark licensing fees and that Matt tried to make Stripe drop WP Engine as a customer. There is more information in the article by Roger Montti.

404 Media summarizes the trademark issue between Matt Mullenweg / Automattic and Kevin Geary / Automatic.CSS. Automattic has asked that the Automatic.CSS product name be changed.

The Github repository for the starter theme Underscores _s has been archived.

Automattic’s Trademark application for “Managed WordPress” and “Hosted WordPress” was rejected. Automattic may be able to add qualifications and exclusions to try to get it through.

WordPress users on dot com now have enhanced code editors available for post, site, and the additional CSS input boxes. It is not certain if these features will be added to the dot org version of WordPress, though usually they are.

Automattic has purchased Clay, a relationship management tool.

It appears that the economic downturn and the dispute with WP Engine may be impacting Automattic’s valuation.

This reduction comes after two rounds of employee buyouts late last year.

Automattic is lowering their contributor hours to 45 hours a week, to match those of WPE.