Trademarks and the New Normal

I came across this article on The Register about a developer who ported Notepad++ to macOS — and promptly got called out for a trademark violation. It made me think about how common this kind of situation is going to become.

I use Notepad++ at work as my scratch pad. It’s a licensed copy via our supply chain team, and it runs on GPLv2 — which means porting the codebase to macOS is entirely within the rules. The code is fair game.

The problem isn’t the port. It’s the likeness.

The developer used the same name, the same icon, and the same visual identity as the original Windows application. As Don Ho, the creator of Notepad++, put it: most users won’t read the fine print. They’ll download it, assume it’s the official release, and never know the difference. That’s not a technicality — it’s the whole point of trademark protection.

Porting someone else’s software used to require serious time and skill. That natural friction kept the volume low. Now, with AI-assisted development tools that can handle much of the heavy lifting, the barrier is nearly gone. A motivated developer can spin up a port in a weekend. That’s genuinely exciting — but it also means the gray areas around naming, likeness, and identity are going to get tested a lot more often.

The code being open doesn’t mean the brand is. That distinction is going to matter more, not less, as the tools get better.