Figma Trademarked “Dev Mode.” Lovable Gets Slammed With a Cease and Desist

Figma trademarked “Dev Mode” and sent a cease and desist to Lovable for using it. A common developer term is now corporate property — and the dev world is raising eyebrows.

You know when April is in the middle, when you read news that sounds like an April Fools day, but they aren’t. Figma just hit Lovable with a cease and desist letter for using “dev mode” trademark.

Yes, you hear that right. It seems Figma, beloved design tool trademarked “dev mode” term:

Figma not-a-love letter, source: https://x.com/antonosika/status/1912147137728589915/photo/1

Just if you are not up-to-date with Figma, the “dev mode” isn’t really a product developed by the company, but a toggle that displays CSS properties etc. so developers can grab these easier from the Figma designs.

Quite useful, I can’t say. However, trademarking “dev mode” isn’t something you just go by and say “well..”, shrug your arms, and move on. In fact “dev mode” is a popular term that was used at least since 2004:

Google Trends, doesn’t allow closing the time selection bar. But we see the trend line for “dev mode”. Source: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=dev%20mode&hl=en