Order Re Motions to Dismiss  🔗 **Source:** [Order Re Motions to Dismiss](https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.437474/gov.uscourts.cand.437474.410.0.pdf) > [!note]+ Document Notes > --- > tags: [antitrust-litigation, wordpress-governance, trademark-law, computer-fraud-abuse-act, plugin-distribution] > author: United States District Court, Northern District of California (Araceli Martínez-Olguín, United States District Judge) > source: CourtListener RECAP (N.D. Cal. 3:24-cv-06917-AMO) > reference: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.437474/gov.uscourts.cand.437474.410.0.pdf > date created: 2026-09-30 09:20 > --- > > [!info] Generated analysis — not the author's words. Sections below are machine-written > > from the captured source. Only text inside `> [!quote]` blocks is verbatim from the author. > > Do not quote or attribute any other line to the named author. > # 🏷️ Title: Order Re Motions to Dismiss > ## 🧭 Table of contents > - [📝 Summary](#-summary) > - [📖 Main content](#-main-content) > - [🗒️ Notes](#️-notes) > - [📚 References](#-references) > - [🗣️ Paraphrase](#️-paraphrase) > - [📰 Newsletter](#-newsletter) > - [✅ Action items](#-action-items) > - [🧪 Hypotheses](#-hypotheses) > - [📊 Methodology](#-methodology) > - [❓ Questions](#-questions) > - [🔮 Future research](#-future-research) > - [💡 Implications](#-implications) > - [🧠 Learning styles assessment](#-learning-styles-assessment) > - [📊 Accessibility assessment](#-accessibility-assessment) > - [🌍 DEIB assessment](#-deib-assessment) > - [✅ Logical validity](#-logical-validity) > - [🛡️ DARVO analysis](#️-darvo-analysis) > - [🎯 Conclusion](#-conclusion) > - [🔄 Refactor appendix](#-refactor-appendix--order-re-motions-to-dismiss) > ## 📝 Summary > This is a descriptive analysis of a court document, not legal advice. The analysis is not by a lawyer. It separates what the Court ordered from what a party alleged or argued. At this stage the Court assumes the complaint's allegations are true for the ruling, which is not a finding of fact. > - **What happened.** On 2026-09-24 the Court (signed by United States District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín, ¶128) issued Dkt. 410, an order on two sets of motions to dismiss in WPEngine, Inc. v. Automattic Inc., et al., No. 24-cv-06917-AMO, N.D. Cal. (¶4, ¶12, ¶127). The Automattic Defendants and WooCommerce moved against WPEngine's third amended complaint (¶13, ¶14). WPEngine moved against the counterclaims (¶14). The Court denied the motion on the four antitrust counts, granted it on the CFAA count without leave to amend, and granted it on one WooCommerce declaratory count without prejudice (¶124, ¶125). It granted WPEngine's motion only in part against the counterclaims (¶125). > - **The claim.** The Court's holdings, count by count, are in the Main content table. The order's core moves: (1) the antitrust claims are viable at the pleading stage, which reverses the Court's earlier dismissal (¶21); (2) the CFAA extortion count fails as a matter of law because WPEngine could not plausibly allege a preexisting right to free, perpetual access to wordpress.org or the related trademarks (¶88, ¶90); (3) most counterclaim defenses raised by WPEngine are fact questions not resolved on the pleadings (¶106, ¶110). > - **Why it matters.** The order is the first substantive ruling recorded in this batch on claims that touch trademark licensing demands, wordpress.org access, plugin distribution and plugin-directory listings. Every factual statement in the antitrust and CFAA discussion is an allegation taken as true for the motion (¶30, ¶38, ¶83), not something the Court found happened. > - **Key stakeholders.** WPEngine (plaintiff and counterdefendant); Automattic Inc. and Matthew Charles Mullenweg (the "Automattic Defendants," counterclaimants); WooCommerce, Inc. (defendant and counterclaimant); the WordPress Foundation (a counterclaimant, ¶14, ¶101); the Court. No attorney or party position is endorsed here. > - **Risks and tradeoffs.** A denial of a motion to dismiss says the claim is plausibly pleaded, not that it will succeed (¶30, ¶34). The Court reserved several arguments, including market-share and Noerr-Pennington, for later stages (¶33, ¶79). Counterclaim dismissals are partial and two carry leave to amend or no stated bar to refiling (¶119, ¶123). Extraction noise in the source (displaced footnotes, repeated captions) limits what this analysis can confirm. > - **Bottom line.** The litigation continues on most counts. Anyone drawing conclusions about WordPress governance practice from this order should cite it only for what the Court held and label everything else as an allegation. > ## 📖 Main content > **Nature of the source.** The text comes from a CourtListener RECAP PDF converted by Reader into an auto-extracted view. The pipeline labeled paragraphs `[P0]` onward and stripped pleading-paper line numbers. The capture repeats case captions and page headers, and footnote bodies appear out of position (for example ¶20, ¶21, ¶32 to ¶34, ¶52 and ¶53, ¶79 to ¶81, ¶96, ¶113). Footnote numbering below is inferred from markers in the text, and footnote 7's body does not appear in the capture. Nothing here guesses at missing text. > **Procedure.** The Court takes up the Automattic Defendants' motion first, then WooCommerce's, then WPEngine's motion against the counterclaims (¶14, ¶15). It grants the requests for judicial notice and incorporation by reference but notes it judicially noticed only the existence of the documents and considered incorporated documents to prevent artful pleading (¶20). Going forward such requests count against page limits (¶20). > **Disposition by count: WPEngine's claims against the defendants.** > | Count | Claim | Movant | Disposition | Court's stated reasoning | > |---|---|---|---|---| > | 3 | CFAA, 18 U.S.C. § 1030(a)(7) | Automattic Defendants | GRANTED, dismissed WITHOUT leave to amend (¶90, ¶125) | WPEngine cannot plausibly allege a preexisting right to use wordpress.org or the trademarks in perpetuity for free. Seeking payment for services with objective value is a lawful claim, not extortion. Threats of war or suspended access amount to hard bargaining (¶88, ¶90). | > | 3 | CFAA | WooCommerce | Dismissed for the reasons in the Count 3 discussion; the Court does not reach WooCommerce's remaining arguments (¶96) | Same as above. | > | 11 | Monopolization, 15 U.S.C. § 2 | Automattic Defendants | DENIED (¶124) | Market pleaded, market power pleaded by direct evidence, antitrust injury pleaded, anticompetitive conduct pleaded (¶25 to ¶41). | > | 12 | Attempted monopolization, § 2 | Automattic Defendants | DENIED (¶124) | Same analysis as Count 11 (¶25 to ¶41). The order does not discuss attempt elements separately in the captured text. | > | 13 | Tying, Sherman Act § 1 | Automattic Defendants | DENIED (¶124) | A negative tie is plausibly pleaded: access to wordpress.org allegedly conditioned on a no-affiliation checkbox (¶44 to ¶50). | > | 14 | Tying, Cartwright Act | Automattic Defendants | DENIED (¶124) | Cartwright analysis mirrors federal law, so it is not considered separately (¶52, ¶53). | > | 1 | Intentional interference with contractual relations | WooCommerce | DENIED (¶93) | Complaint alleges a September 23, 2024 letter from counsel for both Automattic and WooCommerce and a WooCommerce employee soliciting at least one WPEngine customer, so allegations differentiate the defendants (¶93). | > | 2 | Intentional interference with prospective economic relations | WooCommerce | DENIED (¶93) | Same as Count 1. | > | 4 | UCL, Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 17200 | WooCommerce | DENIED (¶94) | WooCommerce's sole ground was that all other claims fail; Counts 1 and 2 survive (¶94). | > | 6 | Declaratory judgment of non-infringement | WooCommerce | DENIED (¶97) | The Court declines to dismiss on the limited "mirror-image claim" argument, since redundancy is hard to judge before trial (¶97). | > | 7 | Declaratory judgment of non-dilution | WooCommerce | GRANTED, dismissed WITHOUT PREJUDICE as to WooCommerce (¶98, ¶99, ¶125) | The sole case WPEngine cited does not establish that such a claim can rest on a cease-and-desist letter (¶98). | > **Disposition by count: counterclaims (Automattic, Mullenweg, the WordPress Foundation, and WooCommerce).** > | Count | Claim | Disposition | Court's stated reasoning | > |---|---|---|---| > | 1, 3, 4, 5 | Trademark infringement (Count 1), common law infringeme Full text of this document omitted because this document is a PDF [Download original file →](https://readwise.io/reader/document_raw_content/501185447), Order Re Motions to Dismiss, United States District Court, Northern District of California (Araceli Martínez-Olguín, United States District Judge), 01m3s7ce7vdeyydqtm34ne2yw6.