diff --git a/core/org.eclipse.cdt.ui/src/org/eclipse/cdt/ui/text/TaskTagRule.java b/core/org.eclipse.cdt.ui/src/org/eclipse/cdt/ui/text/TaskTagRule.java
new file mode 100644
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+++ b/core/org.eclipse.cdt.ui/src/org/eclipse/cdt/ui/text/TaskTagRule.java
@@ -0,0 +1,120 @@
+/*******************************************************************************
+ * Copyright (c) 2000, 2008 IBM Corporation and others.
+ * All rights reserved. This program and the accompanying materials
+ * are made available under the terms of the Eclipse Public License v1.0
+ * which accompanies this distribution, and is available at
+ * http://www.eclipse.org/legal/epl-v10.html
+ *
+ * Contributors:
+ *     IBM Corporation - initial API and implementation
+ *     Anton Leherbauer (Wind River Systems)
+ *     Sergey Prigogin  (Google)
+ *     Andrew Ferguson  (Symbian)
+ *******************************************************************************/
+package org.eclipse.cdt.ui.text;
+
+import org.eclipse.core.runtime.Preferences;
+import org.eclipse.jface.preference.IPreferenceStore;
+import org.eclipse.jface.text.rules.IToken;
+import org.eclipse.jface.text.rules.IWordDetector;
+import org.eclipse.jface.text.rules.Token;
+import org.eclipse.jface.text.rules.WordRule;
+import org.eclipse.jface.util.PropertyChangeEvent;
+
+import org.eclipse.cdt.core.CCorePreferenceConstants;
+import org.eclipse.cdt.ui.IPropertyChangeParticipant;
+
+/**
+ * Which words should be recognized as task tags is specified under {@link CCorePreferenceConstants#TODO_TASK_TAGS} as a
+ * comma delimited list.
+ * 
+ * @see CCorePreferenceConstants#TODO_TASK_TAGS
+ * @since 5.0
+ * @deprecated This class doesn't properly implement parsing of task tags
+ * (see https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=246846). It will be removed.
+ */
+public final class TaskTagRule extends WordRule implements IPropertyChangeParticipant {	
+	private static class TaskTagDetector implements IWordDetector {
+		public boolean isWordStart(char c) {
+			return Character.isLetter(c);
+		}
+		public boolean isWordPart(char c) {
+			return Character.isLetter(c);
+		}
+	}
+
+	/**
+	 * Convenience method for extracting a list of words that should be recognized as 
+	 * task labels from an {@link IPreferenceStore} and a backup {@link Preferences}
+	 * @param preferenceStore
+	 * @param corePreferences
+	 * @return a list of words that should be recognized as task labels in the format
+	 * expected by TaskTagRule
+	 */
+	public static String getTaskWords(IPreferenceStore preferenceStore, Preferences corePreferences) {
+		String result= null;
+		if (preferenceStore.contains(CCorePreferenceConstants.TODO_TASK_TAGS)) {
+			result= preferenceStore.getString(CCorePreferenceConstants.TODO_TASK_TAGS);
+		} else if (corePreferences != null) {
+			result= corePreferences.getString(CCorePreferenceConstants.TODO_TASK_TAGS);
+		}
+		return result;
+	}
+
+	private IToken fToken;
+
+	/**
+	 * Creates a new task tag rule
+	 * @param token the token to return for words recognized as task tags
+	 * @param taskWords a comma delimited list of words to recognize as task tags
+	 */
+	public TaskTagRule(IToken token, String taskWords) {
+		super(new TaskTagDetector(), Token.UNDEFINED);
+		fToken= token;
+		if( taskWords!= null) {
+			addTaskTags(taskWords);
+		}
+	}
+
+	/**
+	 * Removes the current list of words that should be
+	 * recognized as task tags.
+	 */
+	public void clearTaskTags() {
+		fWords.clear();
+	}
+
+	/**
+	 * Adds tags from the specified string as task tags.
+	 * @param value a comma delimited list of words to recognize as task tags
+	 */
+	public void addTaskTags(String value) {
+		String[] tasks= value.split(","); //$NON-NLS-1$
+		for (int i= 0; i < tasks.length; i++) {
+			if (tasks[i].length() > 0) {
+				addWord(tasks[i], fToken);
+			}
+		}
+	}
+
+	/*
+	 * @see org.eclipse.cdt.ui.IPropertyChangeParticipant#affectsBehavior(org.eclipse.jface.util.PropertyChangeEvent)
+	 */
+	public boolean affectsBehavior(PropertyChangeEvent event) {
+		return event.getProperty().equals(CCorePreferenceConstants.TODO_TASK_TAGS);
+	}
+
+	/*
+	 * @see org.eclipse.cdt.ui.IPropertyChangeParticipant#adaptToPreferenceChange(org.eclipse.jface.util.PropertyChangeEvent)
+	 */
+	public void adaptToPreferenceChange(PropertyChangeEvent event) {
+		if (event.getProperty().equals(CCorePreferenceConstants.TODO_TASK_TAGS)) {
+			Object value= event.getNewValue();
+
+			if (value instanceof String) {
+				clearTaskTags();
+				addTaskTags((String) value);
+			}
+		}
+	}
+}