It's interesting that 'dev mode' is a term often used in products for software programmers. It's like an edit mode. Big companies like Apple, Google, and Microsoft have features officially called 'developer mode,' which are then often called 'dev mode' in documents.

The term "dev mode" is often used. For example, Atlassian had it in products that were made years before Figma. It's also a common name for a feature in many free software projects.

Figma told TechCrunch that their trademark is only for the short name "Dev Mode," not the full phrase "developer mode." They said it's similar to trademarking the word "bug" when you mean "debugging."

Because Figma wants to keep the word for itself, it must send official letters telling others to stop using it. If Figma doesn't protect the word, it might become a general word that anyone can use, and the company wouldn't be able to stop them.

Some people online think this word is too common, should not have been trademarked, and say Lovable should fight it.

Anton Osika, who is a founder and the CEO of Lovable, told TechCrunch that his company will not change the feature's name now, even though Figma asked them to.

We will see if Figma takes more action. Figma is also busy with other things. On Tuesday, Figma announced it had secretly filed documents to sell shares to the public for the first time. However, if Figma decides to sue, fighting a legal case in another country could be expensive for the new Swedish company, Lovable. Lovable got $15 million in funding in February.

Also, Lovable is becoming popular for something called "vibe coding." With this, people write what they want, and the product creates it with the necessary code. A new feature called "dev mode" recently came out, letting users change the code.

Lovable says it's a competitor to Figma. On its website, it says designers can use Lovable "without boring prototyping work in tools like Figma." And many new startups are doing this.

So this isn't just a fight over a name. It is also a bigger company preparing to challenge a annoying new competitor. Figma was thought to be worth $12.5 billion about a year ago.

Someone from Figma seemed to agree. They told TechCrunch that they haven't sent legal letters to other companies like Microsoft because their products are very different.

Lovable's Osika is ready to fight back. He told TechCrunch that Figma should work on making their product better, not just on advertising their name. He also said that Lovable is getting customers from Figma and other design tools made before the time of big language models.

When asked about the danger of vibe coding products, Figma's CEO, Dylan Field, quickly said it wasn't a problem.

Field said that even though people like vibe coding because it's fast, you also need to help people not just start quickly and make a first version, but also finish the final product. This is the problem, and it's true for both design and code.

It seems Osika is also ready to compete. When he posted the letter from Figma on X, he used a grinning emoji.