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JavaScript Trademark Update

890 points by thebeardisred 1y ago

remoroid 1y ago
I wonder if non-commercial websites like [1] JavaScript Formatter are allowed under this trademark rule? Its two words and non-commercial so its fine? [1]https://javascriptformatter.com https://javascriptformatter.com
mnstatah 1y ago
Mns
lvl155 1y ago
Thank you to everyone behind this effort. At some point, decades ago in the past, Oracle added value to the tech ecosystem. Now, they’re a giant rent-extracting behemoth. I hate the fact that we can’t have nice things in 2025 simply because Oracle owns the IP. Oracle is what happens when corporations become lazy and hand over the keys to some brand names just because “no one ever got fired for buying/hiring _____.” I hope those days are past us.
- osigurdson 1y ago
  Those days will probably never be behind us because incentive structures in companies make employees risk averse.
- fluidcruft 1y ago
  When has Oracle ever added value whatsoever to the tech ecosystem?
  - tombert 1y ago
    I don’t love Oracle, but GraalVM is pretty cool. That and the vanilla JVM keeps getting updates.
  - ternaryoperator 1y ago
    They've done a ton of stuff with Java, including open-sourcing it in its entirety.
  - homebrewer 1y ago
    If it's an honest question and not just the beginning of a hate-fest, let's think... Both Java the language and OpenJDK the main runtime & development kit have had much more money and manpower poured into them under Oracle than they ever had previously. Both continue to advance rapidly after almost dying pre-Oracle acquisition. MySQL 8 (released in 2018) was a massive release that brought many long awaited features (like CTEs) to the database, although MySQL's development have stalled during the past few years. Oracle employs several Linux kernel developers and is one of major contributors (especially to XFS and btrfs): https://lwn.net/Articles/1022414 https://lwn.net/Articles/1022414 Not top 3 or even top 10, but better than most companies out there. That's all I can remember. edit: after thinking about it for a couple more minutes, they're also the main developer of GraalVM — the only high quality FOSS AOT compiler for Java (also mentioned by a sibling comment), and are writing one of the major relatively lightweight modern alternatives to Spring (the other two being Micronaut and Quarkus): https://helidon.io https://helidon.io
    - beanjuiceII 1y ago
      people just like hating on successful companies, a HN special.. I ignore most those types of posts on this site because they are without any merit
      - toyg 1y ago
        I think the Oracle hate goes a bit beyond the generic hatred for successful companies (be it Microsoft, FAANG, etc). People actually used to like the products that made these companies explode. Windows 2000 was cool; Facebook was cool; Google was cool. Whenever they stop being pure unadulterated evil for a few minutes, very quickly a lot of people are willing to forgive them and welcome them back into polite society. But as long as most geeks can remember, Oracle has never been cool. At its peak, the company enabled a world of snooty BOFH DBAs, selling unreasonably expensive products to well-oiled middle-managers. And then they started "acqui-squeezing" adjacent products, blackmailing their own customers, and suing everyone in sight. They could cure cancer tomorrow, gifting all the related IPs to the world, and most geeks would still see them as scum trying to whitewash their image - and they would probably be right. There are some great engineers in Oracle, but their management is all that is wrong with capitalism.
  - phartenfeller 1y ago
    I think you underestimate the impact of their database on the world. They were a huge tech innovator in that part (and actually still are).
- Someone1234 1y ago
  Sun Microsystems definitely added value, tons in fact. Oracle's contributions are less clear-cut, particularly if you don't count all the acquired "achievements."
  - gardnr 1y ago
    Sun did engineering. Oracle does business. I’d be surprised if Oracle released the trademark without a fight to the end. They have a special way of decimating open source projects.
    - beanjuiceII 1y ago
      oracle does engineering just fine, and they are actually still around...so maybe Sun was doing it wrong
      - b00ty4breakfast 1y ago
        only if there is a 1-1 correspondence between engineering acumen and money-making acumen, which I'm sure you already know isn't the case.
      - hamburglar 1y ago
        The quality of engineering varies wildly within Oracle, to the point that entire divisions can be relied on to produce absolute garbage because longevity completely trumps talent. Oracle Cloud has great engineering (which these days is quite hampered by bureaucracy and misplaced frugality, in my opinion), but outside OCI and a few small select orgs, the situation is dire. At a couple points my org had hiring crunches and leadership’s short term solution was to find employees from other orgs that could be “loaned” to us. The quality was universally jaw-droppingly low. I had to do code reviews and they would do the craziest junior-developer no-standards stuff that would cause their PRs to get rejected repeatedly, because not only did they make dumb decisions, they didn’t even understand the explanations of why they were dumb decisions. It was infuriating and a horrible waste of time, and the second time around, we tried to say we don’t want that kind of help, but leadership insisted that the free manpower was not optional.
jennyholzer 1y ago
Everyone uses “JavaScript” to describe a language. Oracle is a parasite.
- nailer 1y ago
  If Oracle win we rename the language JS. JS stands for nothing.
  - throwawayoldie 1y ago
    How about OS, where the "S" now stands for "sucks", and the meaning of the "O" is left as an exercise for the reader.
    - aleph_minus_one 1y ago
      This will cause confusion with OS for "Open Source".
      - throwawayoldie 1y ago
        Also "Operating System". This is a feature, not a bug.
  - AlienRobot 1y ago
    No, we rename Javascript to Typelessscript.
    - pavlov 1y ago
      Typescript--
    - magicalhippo 1y ago
      .Net compiles to it's IL and who writes raw JavaScript these days anyway, so just call it JSIL.
  - brian-armstrong 1y ago
bobajeff 1y ago
This is one of the things that makes me believe that humanity has just about run it's course.
charcircuit 1y ago
>Everyone uses “JavaScript” to describe a language—not a brand. It can be both. >Everyone knows JavaScript isn’t an Oracle product But older people should know that it was a Sun product and Oracle bought Sun. Edit: Sun actually only licensed the name. But in the renewal it points to an Oracle product called Oracle JavaScript Extention Toolkit. https://tsdr.uspto.gov/documentviewer?caseId=sn75026640&docId=S8920191227132243&linkId=3#docIndex=2&page=4 https://tsdr.uspto.gov/documentviewer?caseId=sn75026640&docI...
- nailer 1y ago
  No. I was around then and nobody thought of JS as a Sun product.
- sockmeistr 1y ago
  But it was never a Sun product? Java was a Sun product, giving JavaScript a name with "Java" in it was the mistake that created this whole mess.
  - fc417fc802 1y ago
    Rename it GoScript this time around.
    - mosdl 1y ago
      It was livescript originally.
      - BrendanEich 1y ago
        Mocha before that. No going back.
- scosman 1y ago
  Java is a Sun product, but Java has nothing to do with Javascript except a confusing name overlap. Javascript was written at Netscape.
zeroCalories 1y ago
This seems like such a pain in the ass to fight. Why not just rename the language? Most people are done with js anyway and just use ts.
- throwawayoldie 1y ago
  I'd like to believe that most people have switched over to TS but I wouldn't count on it until I've seen the numbers, which I am currently too lazy to look up.
  - oceansky 1y ago
    "We're now firmly in the TypeScript era. 67% of respondents stated they write more TypeScript than JavaScript code – while the single largest group consisted of people who only write TypeScript." https://2024.stateofjs.com/en-US/usage/ https://2024.stateofjs.com/en-US/usage/
    - throwawayoldie 1y ago
      Nice to hear, thanks.
- jenadine 1y ago
  Btw, The language is called ECMAScript
  - echelon 1y ago
    Does everyone else pronounce that as "eczema script", too?
    - wiseowise 1y ago
      "EnemaScript"
      - echelon 1y ago
alberth 1y ago
> a screenshot of the Node.js website to show use of the “JavaScript” trademark. As the creator of Node.js, I find that especially offensive. There is some irony in that Ryan isn’t acknowledging Node.js own trademark in his post, given that he was the person who announced the Node.js trademark. https://nodejs.org/en/blog/uncategorized/trademark https://nodejs.org/en/blog/uncategorized/trademark So he wants Node.js trademark to be acknowledged, but doesn’t acknowledge it himself. Oracle wants the JavaScript trademark acknowledged, and he doesn’t want to acknowledge that either. This all seems very silly to me.
- ray023 1y ago
  "Don't knowledge it" because he did not put a stupid TM sign in every blog posts he writes mentioning Node.js is a stretch.
  - alberth 1y ago
    There’s no acknowledgment of Node.js trademark on Deno.com … and the landing page is largely about how much better Deno is over Node.js. Of all places to put trademark acknowledgement, it’d be there - and it’s missing. https://deno.com/ https://deno.com/
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
- nosefurhairdo 1y ago
  Ryan's post explaining the decision to trademark node seems pretty reasonable to me. Does Oracle have a similarly credible justification for maintaining the JavaScript trademark?
  - fredfish 1y ago
    AFAIK Sun gave Netscape free use of the JavaScript Trademark purely to side with Netscape against Microsoft in the browser wars, language wars, etc. I would think there is still something related to the original agreement. It looks like JScript is still trademarked by Microsoft, why not ask them to do whatever the community thinks is right for ECMAScript names and then we can all refer to the language a little faster?
adamredwoods 1y ago
Related: https://javascript.tm/ https://javascript.tm/
- bangaladore 1y ago
  Hugged to death on my end
flkenosad 1y ago
Node is about to become irrelevant. As soon as Microsoft ships TypeScript 7.
- rockwotj 1y ago
  Can you elaborate? Are you conflating node and javascript?
- cakoose 1y ago
  Why will TypeScript 7 make Node.js irrelevant? In TypeScript 7, the compiler will be written in Go instead of TS. But the compiler will still produce JS code as its output and so Node.js is still relevant for running that JS code. Or is there something else about TypeScript 7 that will make Node.js irrelevant?
  - flkenosad 1y ago
    The output would probably not be node, it would target the browser. TypeScript is the only real Node project worth a damn in open source.
- cluckindan 1y ago
  How does a 10x faster TS to JS compiler make a JS runtime irrelevant?
- roman_soldier 1y ago
  Typescript 7 is not a replacement for node, it is a language spec and compiler, but Bun _could_ be the preferred choice for dev using a Javascript runtime.
  - lerp-io 1y ago
    bun is not faster than node, why do people keep thinking this lmao. v8 runtime is like x4 more performant than spidermonkey which is what bun uses.
    - 1y ago
mbStavola 1y ago
Looking at the reasoning[0]: > To plead a claim of fraud, petitioner must plead that: (1) respondent made a false representation to the USPTO; (2) respondent had knowledge of the falsity of the representation; (3) the false representation was material to the continued registration of the mark, and (4) respondent made the representation with the intent to deceive the USPTO. > A claim of fraud must set forth all elements of the claim with a heightened degree of particularity [...] Indeed, “the pleadings [must] contain explicit rather than implied expressions of the circumstances constituting the fraud.” In addition, intent to deceive the USPTO is a specific element of a fraud claim, and must be sufficiently pleaded > Essentially, Petitioner’s theory of fraud is based on allegations that the specimen of use submitted with Respondent’s maintenance documents do not show use by the proper party. It is well-settled that the proper ground for cancellation is the underlying question of whether the mark was in use in commerce, not the adequacy of the specimens [...] the insufficiency of the specimens, per se, does not constitute grounds for cancellation; the proper ground for cancellation is that the term has not been used as a mark From what I understand, TTAB is stating that simply showing that Oracle improperly submitting Node.js as a use of mark does not constitute fraud because the intent to deceive was not explicit. It's a bit frustrating because if its not _fradulent_ the only thing I am left to believe is that they were _negligent_. To file for a mark or renewal of a mark and claim ownership of something you do not own is insane. It's not like this is a 5 second process or that there isn't a lot of money riding on this-- this sort of thing is super serious and incredibly important! You're telling me no one at Oracle or their counsel was able to catch this in review before filing? As far as I can tell, in the renewal for the mark[1], Node.js was the sole specimen provided as an example of mark use! Come on... EDIT: Sorry, correction, they have three specimens attached to the renewal, two of which seem to be the same. Clearly an insurmountable amount of work and too complicated to validate. [0]: https://ttabvue.uspto.gov/ttabvue/v?pno=92086835&pty=CAN&eno=15 https://ttabvue.uspto.gov/ttabvue/v?pno=92086835&pty=CAN&eno... [1]: https://tsdr.uspto.gov/documentviewer?caseId=sn75026640&docId=SPE20191227132243&linkId=2#docIndex=1&page=1 https://tsdr.uspto.gov/documentviewer?caseId=sn75026640&docI...
- thayne 1y ago
  IANAL, but I don't think your analysis is quite correct. I think the key is > It is well-settled that the proper ground for cancellation is the underlying question of whether the mark was in use in commerce, not the adequacy of the specimens If I understand correctly (and I very well might not), that means that it doesn't matter whether some of the provided specimens were fraudulent or not, in order to revoke the trademark the burden of proof is to show the entire trademark claim was fraudulent, and if there was no fraud, then the trademark wouldn't have been granted. Deno might be able to make a stronger argument of fraud, if they could show without that specimen USPTO would have rejected the application, or that the other specimen was also invalid, but that would delay the proceedings and require more work for them.
moritzwarhier 1y ago
Deno should start a campaign with the slogan "Did you know that JavaScript has nothing to do with Java? (except for court trials)" I'd donate.
- twoodfin 1y ago
  I don’t mean to be pedantic, but beyond the deliberate syntactic echoes, JavaScript and Java were the first two languages with (incompatible!) object-oriented data models enforced by the runtime to achieve widespread adoption with longevity (sorry, Smalltalk!) Python was invented earlier, but didn’t see wide use until later. And that they were both massively accelerated by the level of interest in the early WWW is undeniable. No other general purpose languages can say that except perhaps Perl, and it slowly burned out.
  - moritzwarhier 1y ago
    Interesting point, but I'm not able to judge the trutfulness. So the JVM has a runtime-enforced nominal type system (and object model) with classes. But JS, to my knowledge, only has primitive types enforced at runtime, and no nomimal class system, unless you basically implement it yourself? Uh, edit: maybe I get you now, it does have that in a way. But prototype identity and "instanceof" are rarely used in practise. Maybe I'm missing your point here. Answering at late local time. It would be so great to have a nominal type system in the browser though. So many JS librarlies have their own version of it, and it causes insufferable headaches when combined with TypeScript. Like, they use complicated hacks to make sure that their library objects are not structurall/duck typed.
    - twoodfin 1y ago
      classes != objects Yes, the typing and semantic models are wildly different. The point is that they’re primitive in a way that the other widespread alternative, C++, did not inherit from its Cfront heritage.
      - moritzwarhier 1y ago
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
moralestapia 1y ago
I might not be popular for this but JavaScript is indeed a trademark which Oracle rightfully owns these days. This is fair play. However, I do believe the word has been diluted and genericized and hope the USPTO chooses to release it. A good argument to avoid losing a trademark to genericization is to show that there is an actual generic term that overlaps with the trademark, but then the trademark is not the generic term itself. Examples: Nintendo → Video Game Console Post-it → Sticky Note Xerox → Photocopy etc ... In the case of JavaScript, there's no generic term to allude to; JavaScript is the generic term, which might weigh towards the argument of genericization.
- mmastrac 1y ago
  > JavaScript is indeed a trademark which Oracle rightfully owns these days Err, that's not a given by any stretch. This is exactly what the suit is trying to prove. They are not a rightful holder of the trademark. They've failed to show use in commerce, and one of their examples of use was someone else's.
  - moralestapia 1y ago
    But it is an Oracle trademark, [1]. And here's one (trivial, but valid) use of it [2]. I'm sure Ellison lawyer's can come up with thousands of examples of JavaScript being used within the context of Oracle's business activities. The way to go is fight for genericization (or start calling it ECMAScript, lmao). 1: https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=75026640&caseSearchType=US_APPLICATION&caseType=DEFAULT&searchType=statusSearch https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=75026640&caseSearchType=U... 2: https://docs.oracle.com/en/database/oracle/oracle-database/23/mlejs/overview-javascript.html https://docs.oracle.com/en/database/oracle/oracle-database/2...
    - vips7L 1y ago
      Oracle develops, maintains, and sells 2 different JavaScript runtimes. They’re definitely using it.
      - 1y ago
maxk42 1y ago
Oracle, to my knowledge, does not profit at all off of the JavaScript name or brand. I don't see the purpose of defending this lawsuit. They have an opportunity to create some goodwill here, hold a press release, and say "We're gifting the JavaScript trademark to the developer community!" But instead they're defending something that they literally do not profit off of. It's absurd.
- relativeadv 1y ago
  Oracle is doing something petty and absurd? Are you sure?
  - kstrauser 1y ago
    The hell, you say!
    - Quekid5 1y ago
      "To shreds, you say?"
- drdaeman 1y ago
  Nowadays, it's a lawyer company - not a technology/software company. Their only reason for existence is to keep selling licenses for the things they own for as long as they still can, so it's pretty natural they're holding on to anything (regardless of actual value) they can.
  - vips7L 1y ago
    It’s a huge company with different divisions. Oracle is one of the leading researchers in JIT compilers, garbage collectors, and language interpreters.
    - bigiain 1y ago
      Part of me thinks that's just the Oracle equivalent of janitorial and catering staff, the people you need to keep around to ensure the people creating the company profit, the sales people and lawyers, can work most efficiently.
pikuseru 1y ago
Can I invent a language called Larry Ellison Script and trademark it
- binarymax 1y ago
  IANAL. But yes I think we can.
  - bapak 1y ago
    Good luck with the cease and desist letters.
spullara 1y ago
my guess is that they feel there is risk in releasing the javascript trademark to the java trademark.
Hilift 1y ago
Imagine toiling all those years to make J* products usable, only to have Larry Ellison bigfoot everything.
wiremine 1y ago
The cartoon explaining Oracle's org structure feels appropriate: https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/code-review-on-printed-paper-an-excerpt https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/code-review-on-pr...
lerp-io 1y ago
[flagged]
calrain 1y ago
All the power to you Ryan!
JHorse 1y ago
One Rich Asshole Called Larry Ellison
rswail 1y ago
Doesn't Oracle stand for "One Raging Asshole Called Larry Ellison"?
cr125rider 1y ago
Oracle is the definition of legacy. If you’re still using them you’re behind in the market and behind your competitors.
giancarlostoro 1y ago
Nashorn (the JS engine in the JDK) was the only teeth Oracle had, but they removed it, so what can they truly say they own that supports the fact they're building JavaScript?
- sradman 1y ago
  GraalJS?
  - giancarlostoro 1y ago
    Thats not Oracle though I thought that was IBM? But if it is Oracle why did they submit nodejs as an example? They do not own nodejs (yet?) so it’s bizarre.
    - vips7L 1y ago
      Graal is Oracle Labs. Their research arm.
    - sgammon 1y ago
      The application for the copyright predates GraalJs.
- vips7L 1y ago
  Nashorn is still actively developed.
ingen0s 1y ago
ughmmm.so squatting.
b0a04gl 1y ago
[dead]
pjmlp 1y ago
This looks like a distraction from Deno company. Everyone knows what powers companies like Oracle, so it isn't as if they would given up on this, unless told so by the courts. Maybe Deno the company should focus on making their actual business case, why pay for Deno instead of using node?
- rs_rs_rs_rs_rs 1y ago
  >why pay for Deno Pay for Deno? I never had to do that, what am I doing wrong?
  - pjmlp 1y ago
    You're not using their SaaS platform, which like Vercel with Next.js, is what keeps development rolling in. What many are doing wrong is not paying for our tools like in other professions, and then acting surprised when the authors decide to pivot for something else, when funding dries out.
- psnehanshu 1y ago
  It's a great move for the brand Deno. They will be seen as the saviour of javascript.
  - pjmlp 1y ago
    Maybe between some folks, for me it looks like acquisition of node market share isn't going as expected, so we get these kind of activities.
jackgavigan 1y ago
Maybe it’s time to revert to Javascript’s original name: LiveScript.
- bravesoul2 1y ago
  Revert it to a Lisp too
  - wiseowise 1y ago
    JavaScript is not Lisp.
    - bravesoul2 1y ago
      It was meant to be
  - jackgavigan 1y ago
    What, "JavaThcript"?
xdennis 1y ago
While JavaScript has obviously become generic, why do people actually care to make it official? Has anyone ever gotten in trouble for saying "JavaScript"?
- timvisee 1y ago
  If not now, maybe in the future
KingOfCoders 1y ago
Oracle is the only company in history that spawned a huge consultants network just to "survive" their license audits. Google results: Oracle License Audit Survival Guide for CIOs Handling Oracle’s “Friendly” License Reviews How to Prepare for an Oracle License Audit How to Prepare For and Navigate an Oracle License Audit Top 7 Oracle Audit Triggers (And How to Avoid Them) Top 5 Best Oracle License Consultant Firms 7 Questions to Ask When Engaging an Oracle Audit Defense
- rjpower9000 1y ago
  Thanks for sharing. I ended up reading through one of these -- https://atonementlicensing.com/surviving-your-first-oracle-license-audit/ https://atonementlicensing.com/surviving-your-first-oracle-l... -- it's truly amazing/terrifying that it's so bad. It's hard to imagine how a company could be more extractive than this.
pezo1919 1y ago
We renamed master to main for nonsense. Broke everything. Still, companies and people were proud of it (lol). Why we do not just use EcmaScript from now on in conversations and as a trend so the issue is solved. A joke to me.
- wobblyasp 1y ago
  What did it break for you? It was a relatively straightforwardly renaming process.
  - globular-toast 1y ago
    I've discovered submodules and build pipelines broken due to a changed name within the last year. Doesn't help that some people are late to the party and still changing things now. But, hey, at least I've done my part against slavery /s
- globular-toast 1y ago
  Names are a funny thing. When gay marriage was still disputed I argued for just dropping the word "marriage" from law. My country has had civil partnerships available to all since 2000, which is gay marriage in everything but name. A decade later and people were still fighting for the name. I don't get it but language is a powerful thing and means a lot to some people. As for master->main, that was just fake activism by people desperately wanting to be a part of something but not prepared to put in any actual work to convince anyone of anything they don't already agree with. Convincing people to drop the name JavaScript would be difficult due to the attachment and perceived loss to an evil company.
tolmasky 1y ago
I propose we rename JavaScript to "UntypedScript".
- SwiftyBug 1y ago
  You have my sword.
tolmasky 1y ago
In all seriousness, let's just rename it "WebScript". WebAssembly, WebGPU, WebRTC, WebWorkers. It fits. And it seems like there's no active trademark for it too (although I admittedly did not do a super sophisticated search). The “Java” prefix still confuses new users, not to mention "bizdev" people, and probably leads to legal issues beyond just the trademark. "JavaScript" has always sucked as a name, we're just used to it now. Why are we fighting so hard for it? Let's just take this as an opportunity to name it something that actually makes sense. It will maybe be sort of annoying for a few years, but I'm certain one day we'll look back and not believe we used to call it "JAVA Script".
- andyferris 1y ago
  I mean... did Oracle consult the government in Jakarta about their use of the term Java? There are more than 100 million people there and we squabble about the conotations of the name of a programming with the name of another programming language whose name has connotations about someone elses island which is actually a connotation about some coffee some programmers drank who felt Jolt Cola is so Microsoft and isn't as cool as freshly roasted beans anymore (...in 1996). But WebScript I could actually get behind! (if the case fails)
  - tolmasky 1y ago
    I agree that Oracle's case has no merit, for all sorts of reasons. But the time investment is asymmetric. It is easy for them to drag their feet, it is easy for them to confuse the judge who is almost certainly unfamiliar with the bizarre naming history of this language, and they have nothing better to do. Oracle can throw 100 interchangeable lawyers at this. Meanwhile, this is sucking the time of unique individuals like Ryan Dahl. It is a tragedy that his attention should go to this. But this is especially so given that JavaScript isn't even a good name. It would be one thing to fight this on principle if the name was great, but it isn't. In fact, the name was specifically originally chosen due to its confusion-causing powers -- the unfortunate reality is that JavaScript was chosen precisely to ride the coattails of the then hot new technology Java. This was a horrible idea from day one. No one would suggest I name a new unrelated programming language "SwiftScript" or "RustScript" today to benefit from the popularity of those languages. It would be both tacky and shortsighted. Is it tacky enough to change in isolation? No, it would just be yet another unfortunate part of tech culture, like "referer" only having 3 r's instead of 4. But it absolutely is tacky enough to give up if we are facing some huge case against an actor that is quite literally infamous for their stubbornness in court. No one at Oracle is thinking about this for longer than 5 minutes, while it is causing tremendous grief to Ryan and half the JavaScript community. Why give them that? Let Oracle own all the shitty Java-related trademarks. We're not even handing them a win. The JS trademark will become worthless once we all switch to WebScript, and as an added bonus it won't even accidentally provide even a tiny bit of free marketing for any other their technologies like JavaScript maybe does today. Their reward can be a step further toward of obscurity, self-excising themselves from their current unearned appearance in the history of the web whenever JavaScript is mentioned.
joshdavham 1y ago
Will Oracle always legally own the JavaScript trademark? Or is there an eventual expiry date when it will become “public domain”, etc?
- Tempest1981 1y ago
  Patents and Copyrights expire. Trademarks can be renewed indefinitely.
  - joshdavham 1y ago
    Oof.
neuroelectron 1y ago
That would be a shame if Oracle killed JavaScript.

890 points by thebeardisred 1y ago

I wonder if non-commercial websites like [1] JavaScript Formatter are allowed under this trademark rule? Its two words and non-commercial so its fine? [1]https://javascriptformatter.com https://javascriptformatter.com

mnstatah 1y ago

Mns

lvl155 1y ago

Thank you to everyone behind this effort. At some point, decades ago in the past, Oracle added value to the tech ecosystem. Now, they’re a giant rent-extracting behemoth. I hate the fact that we can’t have nice things in 2025 simply because Oracle owns the IP. Oracle is what happens when corporations become lazy and hand over the keys to some brand names just because “no one ever got fired for buying/hiring _____.” I hope those days are past us.

osigurdson 1y ago
Those days will probably never be behind us because incentive structures in companies make employees risk averse.
fluidcruft 1y ago
When has Oracle ever added value whatsoever to the tech ecosystem?
- tombert 1y ago
  I don’t love Oracle, but GraalVM is pretty cool. That and the vanilla JVM keeps getting updates.
- ternaryoperator 1y ago
  They've done a ton of stuff with Java, including open-sourcing it in its entirety.
- homebrewer 1y ago
  If it's an honest question and not just the beginning of a hate-fest, let's think... Both Java the language and OpenJDK the main runtime & development kit have had much more money and manpower poured into them under Oracle than they ever had previously. Both continue to advance rapidly after almost dying pre-Oracle acquisition. MySQL 8 (released in 2018) was a massive release that brought many long awaited features (like CTEs) to the database, although MySQL's development have stalled during the past few years. Oracle employs several Linux kernel developers and is one of major contributors (especially to XFS and btrfs): https://lwn.net/Articles/1022414 https://lwn.net/Articles/1022414 Not top 3 or even top 10, but better than most companies out there. That's all I can remember. edit: after thinking about it for a couple more minutes, they're also the main developer of GraalVM — the only high quality FOSS AOT compiler for Java (also mentioned by a sibling comment), and are writing one of the major relatively lightweight modern alternatives to Spring (the other two being Micronaut and Quarkus): https://helidon.io https://helidon.io
  - beanjuiceII 1y ago
    people just like hating on successful companies, a HN special.. I ignore most those types of posts on this site because they are without any merit
    - toyg 1y ago
      I think the Oracle hate goes a bit beyond the generic hatred for successful companies (be it Microsoft, FAANG, etc). People actually used to like the products that made these companies explode. Windows 2000 was cool; Facebook was cool; Google was cool. Whenever they stop being pure unadulterated evil for a few minutes, very quickly a lot of people are willing to forgive them and welcome them back into polite society. But as long as most geeks can remember, Oracle has never been cool. At its peak, the company enabled a world of snooty BOFH DBAs, selling unreasonably expensive products to well-oiled middle-managers. And then they started "acqui-squeezing" adjacent products, blackmailing their own customers, and suing everyone in sight. They could cure cancer tomorrow, gifting all the related IPs to the world, and most geeks would still see them as scum trying to whitewash their image - and they would probably be right. There are some great engineers in Oracle, but their management is all that is wrong with capitalism.
- phartenfeller 1y ago
  I think you underestimate the impact of their database on the world. They were a huge tech innovator in that part (and actually still are).
Someone1234 1y ago
Sun Microsystems definitely added value, tons in fact. Oracle's contributions are less clear-cut, particularly if you don't count all the acquired "achievements."
- gardnr 1y ago
  Sun did engineering. Oracle does business. I’d be surprised if Oracle released the trademark without a fight to the end. They have a special way of decimating open source projects.
  - beanjuiceII 1y ago
    oracle does engineering just fine, and they are actually still around...so maybe Sun was doing it wrong
    - b00ty4breakfast 1y ago
      only if there is a 1-1 correspondence between engineering acumen and money-making acumen, which I'm sure you already know isn't the case.
    - hamburglar 1y ago
      The quality of engineering varies wildly within Oracle, to the point that entire divisions can be relied on to produce absolute garbage because longevity completely trumps talent. Oracle Cloud has great engineering (which these days is quite hampered by bureaucracy and misplaced frugality, in my opinion), but outside OCI and a few small select orgs, the situation is dire. At a couple points my org had hiring crunches and leadership’s short term solution was to find employees from other orgs that could be “loaned” to us. The quality was universally jaw-droppingly low. I had to do code reviews and they would do the craziest junior-developer no-standards stuff that would cause their PRs to get rejected repeatedly, because not only did they make dumb decisions, they didn’t even understand the explanations of why they were dumb decisions. It was infuriating and a horrible waste of time, and the second time around, we tried to say we don’t want that kind of help, but leadership insisted that the free manpower was not optional.

jennyholzer 1y ago

Everyone uses “JavaScript” to describe a language. Oracle is a parasite.

nailer 1y ago
If Oracle win we rename the language JS. JS stands for nothing.
- throwawayoldie 1y ago
  How about OS, where the "S" now stands for "sucks", and the meaning of the "O" is left as an exercise for the reader.
  - aleph_minus_one 1y ago
    This will cause confusion with OS for "Open Source".
    - throwawayoldie 1y ago
      Also "Operating System". This is a feature, not a bug.
- AlienRobot 1y ago
  No, we rename Javascript to Typelessscript.
  - pavlov 1y ago
    Typescript--
  - magicalhippo 1y ago
    .Net compiles to it's IL and who writes raw JavaScript these days anyway, so just call it JSIL.
- brian-armstrong 1y ago

bobajeff 1y ago

This is one of the things that makes me believe that humanity has just about run it's course.

charcircuit 1y ago

>Everyone uses “JavaScript” to describe a language—not a brand. It can be both. >Everyone knows JavaScript isn’t an Oracle product But older people should know that it was a Sun product and Oracle bought Sun. Edit: Sun actually only licensed the name. But in the renewal it points to an Oracle product called Oracle JavaScript Extention Toolkit. https://tsdr.uspto.gov/documentviewer?caseId=sn75026640&docId=S8920191227132243&linkId=3#docIndex=2&page=4 https://tsdr.uspto.gov/documentviewer?caseId=sn75026640&docI...

nailer 1y ago
No. I was around then and nobody thought of JS as a Sun product.
sockmeistr 1y ago
But it was never a Sun product? Java was a Sun product, giving JavaScript a name with "Java" in it was the mistake that created this whole mess.
- fc417fc802 1y ago
  Rename it GoScript this time around.
  - mosdl 1y ago
    It was livescript originally.
    - BrendanEich 1y ago
      Mocha before that. No going back.
scosman 1y ago
Java is a Sun product, but Java has nothing to do with Javascript except a confusing name overlap. Javascript was written at Netscape.

zeroCalories 1y ago

This seems like such a pain in the ass to fight. Why not just rename the language? Most people are done with js anyway and just use ts.

throwawayoldie 1y ago
I'd like to believe that most people have switched over to TS but I wouldn't count on it until I've seen the numbers, which I am currently too lazy to look up.
- oceansky 1y ago
  "We're now firmly in the TypeScript era. 67% of respondents stated they write more TypeScript than JavaScript code – while the single largest group consisted of people who only write TypeScript." https://2024.stateofjs.com/en-US/usage/ https://2024.stateofjs.com/en-US/usage/
  - throwawayoldie 1y ago
    Nice to hear, thanks.
jenadine 1y ago
Btw, The language is called ECMAScript
- echelon 1y ago
  Does everyone else pronounce that as "eczema script", too?
  - wiseowise 1y ago
    "EnemaScript"
    - echelon 1y ago

alberth 1y ago

> a screenshot of the Node.js website to show use of the “JavaScript” trademark. As the creator of Node.js, I find that especially offensive. There is some irony in that Ryan isn’t acknowledging Node.js own trademark in his post, given that he was the person who announced the Node.js trademark. https://nodejs.org/en/blog/uncategorized/trademark https://nodejs.org/en/blog/uncategorized/trademark So he wants Node.js trademark to be acknowledged, but doesn’t acknowledge it himself. Oracle wants the JavaScript trademark acknowledged, and he doesn’t want to acknowledge that either. This all seems very silly to me.

ray023 1y ago
"Don't knowledge it" because he did not put a stupid TM sign in every blog posts he writes mentioning Node.js is a stretch.
- alberth 1y ago
  There’s no acknowledgment of Node.js trademark on Deno.com … and the landing page is largely about how much better Deno is over Node.js. Of all places to put trademark acknowledgement, it’d be there - and it’s missing. https://deno.com/ https://deno.com/
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
nosefurhairdo 1y ago
Ryan's post explaining the decision to trademark node seems pretty reasonable to me. Does Oracle have a similarly credible justification for maintaining the JavaScript trademark?
- fredfish 1y ago
  AFAIK Sun gave Netscape free use of the JavaScript Trademark purely to side with Netscape against Microsoft in the browser wars, language wars, etc. I would think there is still something related to the original agreement. It looks like JScript is still trademarked by Microsoft, why not ask them to do whatever the community thinks is right for ECMAScript names and then we can all refer to the language a little faster?

adamredwoods 1y ago

Related: https://javascript.tm/ https://javascript.tm/

bangaladore 1y ago
Hugged to death on my end

flkenosad 1y ago

Node is about to become irrelevant. As soon as Microsoft ships TypeScript 7.

rockwotj 1y ago
Can you elaborate? Are you conflating node and javascript?
cakoose 1y ago
Why will TypeScript 7 make Node.js irrelevant? In TypeScript 7, the compiler will be written in Go instead of TS. But the compiler will still produce JS code as its output and so Node.js is still relevant for running that JS code. Or is there something else about TypeScript 7 that will make Node.js irrelevant?
- flkenosad 1y ago
  The output would probably not be node, it would target the browser. TypeScript is the only real Node project worth a damn in open source.
cluckindan 1y ago
How does a 10x faster TS to JS compiler make a JS runtime irrelevant?
roman_soldier 1y ago
Typescript 7 is not a replacement for node, it is a language spec and compiler, but Bun _could_ be the preferred choice for dev using a Javascript runtime.
- lerp-io 1y ago
  bun is not faster than node, why do people keep thinking this lmao. v8 runtime is like x4 more performant than spidermonkey which is what bun uses.
  - 1y ago

mbStavola 1y ago

Looking at the reasoning[0]: > To plead a claim of fraud, petitioner must plead that: (1) respondent made a false representation to the USPTO; (2) respondent had knowledge of the falsity of the representation; (3) the false representation was material to the continued registration of the mark, and (4) respondent made the representation with the intent to deceive the USPTO. > A claim of fraud must set forth all elements of the claim with a heightened degree of particularity [...] Indeed, “the pleadings [must] contain explicit rather than implied expressions of the circumstances constituting the fraud.” In addition, intent to deceive the USPTO is a specific element of a fraud claim, and must be sufficiently pleaded > Essentially, Petitioner’s theory of fraud is based on allegations that the specimen of use submitted with Respondent’s maintenance documents do not show use by the proper party. It is well-settled that the proper ground for cancellation is the underlying question of whether the mark was in use in commerce, not the adequacy of the specimens [...] the insufficiency of the specimens, per se, does not constitute grounds for cancellation; the proper ground for cancellation is that the term has not been used as a mark From what I understand, TTAB is stating that simply showing that Oracle improperly submitting Node.js as a use of mark does not constitute fraud because the intent to deceive was not explicit. It's a bit frustrating because if its not _fradulent_ the only thing I am left to believe is that they were _negligent_. To file for a mark or renewal of a mark and claim ownership of something you do not own is insane. It's not like this is a 5 second process or that there isn't a lot of money riding on this-- this sort of thing is super serious and incredibly important! You're telling me no one at Oracle or their counsel was able to catch this in review before filing? As far as I can tell, in the renewal for the mark[1], Node.js was the sole specimen provided as an example of mark use! Come on... EDIT: Sorry, correction, they have three specimens attached to the renewal, two of which seem to be the same. Clearly an insurmountable amount of work and too complicated to validate. [0]: https://ttabvue.uspto.gov/ttabvue/v?pno=92086835&pty=CAN&eno=15 https://ttabvue.uspto.gov/ttabvue/v?pno=92086835&pty=CAN&eno... [1]: https://tsdr.uspto.gov/documentviewer?caseId=sn75026640&docId=SPE20191227132243&linkId=2#docIndex=1&page=1 https://tsdr.uspto.gov/documentviewer?caseId=sn75026640&docI...

thayne 1y ago
IANAL, but I don't think your analysis is quite correct. I think the key is > It is well-settled that the proper ground for cancellation is the underlying question of whether the mark was in use in commerce, not the adequacy of the specimens If I understand correctly (and I very well might not), that means that it doesn't matter whether some of the provided specimens were fraudulent or not, in order to revoke the trademark the burden of proof is to show the entire trademark claim was fraudulent, and if there was no fraud, then the trademark wouldn't have been granted. Deno might be able to make a stronger argument of fraud, if they could show without that specimen USPTO would have rejected the application, or that the other specimen was also invalid, but that would delay the proceedings and require more work for them.

moritzwarhier 1y ago

Deno should start a campaign with the slogan "Did you know that JavaScript has nothing to do with Java? (except for court trials)" I'd donate.

twoodfin 1y ago
I don’t mean to be pedantic, but beyond the deliberate syntactic echoes, JavaScript and Java were the first two languages with (incompatible!) object-oriented data models enforced by the runtime to achieve widespread adoption with longevity (sorry, Smalltalk!) Python was invented earlier, but didn’t see wide use until later. And that they were both massively accelerated by the level of interest in the early WWW is undeniable. No other general purpose languages can say that except perhaps Perl, and it slowly burned out.
- moritzwarhier 1y ago
  Interesting point, but I'm not able to judge the trutfulness. So the JVM has a runtime-enforced nominal type system (and object model) with classes. But JS, to my knowledge, only has primitive types enforced at runtime, and no nomimal class system, unless you basically implement it yourself? Uh, edit: maybe I get you now, it does have that in a way. But prototype identity and "instanceof" are rarely used in practise. Maybe I'm missing your point here. Answering at late local time. It would be so great to have a nominal type system in the browser though. So many JS librarlies have their own version of it, and it causes insufferable headaches when combined with TypeScript. Like, they use complicated hacks to make sure that their library objects are not structurall/duck typed.
  - twoodfin 1y ago
    classes != objects Yes, the typing and semantic models are wildly different. The point is that they’re primitive in a way that the other widespread alternative, C++, did not inherit from its Cfront heritage.
    - moritzwarhier 1y ago

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

moralestapia 1y ago

I might not be popular for this but JavaScript is indeed a trademark which Oracle rightfully owns these days. This is fair play. However, I do believe the word has been diluted and genericized and hope the USPTO chooses to release it. A good argument to avoid losing a trademark to genericization is to show that there is an actual generic term that overlaps with the trademark, but then the trademark is not the generic term itself. Examples: Nintendo → Video Game Console Post-it → Sticky Note Xerox → Photocopy etc ... In the case of JavaScript, there's no generic term to allude to; JavaScript is the generic term, which might weigh towards the argument of genericization.

mmastrac 1y ago
> JavaScript is indeed a trademark which Oracle rightfully owns these days Err, that's not a given by any stretch. This is exactly what the suit is trying to prove. They are not a rightful holder of the trademark. They've failed to show use in commerce, and one of their examples of use was someone else's.
- moralestapia 1y ago
  But it is an Oracle trademark, [1]. And here's one (trivial, but valid) use of it [2]. I'm sure Ellison lawyer's can come up with thousands of examples of JavaScript being used within the context of Oracle's business activities. The way to go is fight for genericization (or start calling it ECMAScript, lmao). 1: https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=75026640&caseSearchType=US_APPLICATION&caseType=DEFAULT&searchType=statusSearch https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=75026640&caseSearchType=U... 2: https://docs.oracle.com/en/database/oracle/oracle-database/23/mlejs/overview-javascript.html https://docs.oracle.com/en/database/oracle/oracle-database/2...
  - vips7L 1y ago
    Oracle develops, maintains, and sells 2 different JavaScript runtimes. They’re definitely using it.
    - 1y ago

maxk42 1y ago

Oracle, to my knowledge, does not profit at all off of the JavaScript name or brand. I don't see the purpose of defending this lawsuit. They have an opportunity to create some goodwill here, hold a press release, and say "We're gifting the JavaScript trademark to the developer community!" But instead they're defending something that they literally do not profit off of. It's absurd.

relativeadv 1y ago
Oracle is doing something petty and absurd? Are you sure?
- kstrauser 1y ago
  The hell, you say!
  - Quekid5 1y ago
    "To shreds, you say?"
drdaeman 1y ago
Nowadays, it's a lawyer company - not a technology/software company. Their only reason for existence is to keep selling licenses for the things they own for as long as they still can, so it's pretty natural they're holding on to anything (regardless of actual value) they can.
- vips7L 1y ago
  It’s a huge company with different divisions. Oracle is one of the leading researchers in JIT compilers, garbage collectors, and language interpreters.
  - bigiain 1y ago
    Part of me thinks that's just the Oracle equivalent of janitorial and catering staff, the people you need to keep around to ensure the people creating the company profit, the sales people and lawyers, can work most efficiently.

pikuseru 1y ago

Can I invent a language called Larry Ellison Script and trademark it

binarymax 1y ago
IANAL. But yes I think we can.
- bapak 1y ago
  Good luck with the cease and desist letters.

spullara 1y ago

my guess is that they feel there is risk in releasing the javascript trademark to the java trademark.

Hilift 1y ago

Imagine toiling all those years to make J* products usable, only to have Larry Ellison bigfoot everything.

wiremine 1y ago

The cartoon explaining Oracle's org structure feels appropriate: https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/code-review-on-printed-paper-an-excerpt https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/code-review-on-pr...

lerp-io 1y ago

[flagged]

calrain 1y ago

All the power to you Ryan!

JHorse 1y ago

One Rich Asshole Called Larry Ellison

rswail 1y ago

Doesn't Oracle stand for "One Raging Asshole Called Larry Ellison"?

cr125rider 1y ago

Oracle is the definition of legacy. If you’re still using them you’re behind in the market and behind your competitors.

giancarlostoro 1y ago

Nashorn (the JS engine in the JDK) was the only teeth Oracle had, but they removed it, so what can they truly say they own that supports the fact they're building JavaScript?

sradman 1y ago
GraalJS?
- giancarlostoro 1y ago
  Thats not Oracle though I thought that was IBM? But if it is Oracle why did they submit nodejs as an example? They do not own nodejs (yet?) so it’s bizarre.
  - vips7L 1y ago
    Graal is Oracle Labs. Their research arm.
  - sgammon 1y ago
    The application for the copyright predates GraalJs.
vips7L 1y ago
Nashorn is still actively developed.

ingen0s 1y ago

ughmmm.so squatting.

b0a04gl 1y ago

[dead]

pjmlp 1y ago

This looks like a distraction from Deno company. Everyone knows what powers companies like Oracle, so it isn't as if they would given up on this, unless told so by the courts. Maybe Deno the company should focus on making their actual business case, why pay for Deno instead of using node?

rs_rs_rs_rs_rs 1y ago
>why pay for Deno Pay for Deno? I never had to do that, what am I doing wrong?
- pjmlp 1y ago
  You're not using their SaaS platform, which like Vercel with Next.js, is what keeps development rolling in. What many are doing wrong is not paying for our tools like in other professions, and then acting surprised when the authors decide to pivot for something else, when funding dries out.
psnehanshu 1y ago
It's a great move for the brand Deno. They will be seen as the saviour of javascript.
- pjmlp 1y ago
  Maybe between some folks, for me it looks like acquisition of node market share isn't going as expected, so we get these kind of activities.

jackgavigan 1y ago

Maybe it’s time to revert to Javascript’s original name: LiveScript.

bravesoul2 1y ago
Revert it to a Lisp too
- wiseowise 1y ago
  JavaScript is not Lisp.
  - bravesoul2 1y ago
    It was meant to be
- jackgavigan 1y ago
  What, "JavaThcript"?

xdennis 1y ago

While JavaScript has obviously become generic, why do people actually care to make it official? Has anyone ever gotten in trouble for saying "JavaScript"?

timvisee 1y ago
If not now, maybe in the future

KingOfCoders 1y ago

Oracle is the only company in history that spawned a huge consultants network just to "survive" their license audits. Google results: Oracle License Audit Survival Guide for CIOs Handling Oracle’s “Friendly” License Reviews How to Prepare for an Oracle License Audit How to Prepare For and Navigate an Oracle License Audit Top 7 Oracle Audit Triggers (And How to Avoid Them) Top 5 Best Oracle License Consultant Firms 7 Questions to Ask When Engaging an Oracle Audit Defense

rjpower9000 1y ago
Thanks for sharing. I ended up reading through one of these -- https://atonementlicensing.com/surviving-your-first-oracle-license-audit/ https://atonementlicensing.com/surviving-your-first-oracle-l... -- it's truly amazing/terrifying that it's so bad. It's hard to imagine how a company could be more extractive than this.

pezo1919 1y ago

We renamed master to main for nonsense. Broke everything. Still, companies and people were proud of it (lol). Why we do not just use EcmaScript from now on in conversations and as a trend so the issue is solved. A joke to me.

wobblyasp 1y ago
What did it break for you? It was a relatively straightforwardly renaming process.
- globular-toast 1y ago
  I've discovered submodules and build pipelines broken due to a changed name within the last year. Doesn't help that some people are late to the party and still changing things now. But, hey, at least I've done my part against slavery /s
globular-toast 1y ago
Names are a funny thing. When gay marriage was still disputed I argued for just dropping the word "marriage" from law. My country has had civil partnerships available to all since 2000, which is gay marriage in everything but name. A decade later and people were still fighting for the name. I don't get it but language is a powerful thing and means a lot to some people. As for master->main, that was just fake activism by people desperately wanting to be a part of something but not prepared to put in any actual work to convince anyone of anything they don't already agree with. Convincing people to drop the name JavaScript would be difficult due to the attachment and perceived loss to an evil company.

tolmasky 1y ago

I propose we rename JavaScript to "UntypedScript".

SwiftyBug 1y ago
You have my sword.

tolmasky 1y ago

In all seriousness, let's just rename it "WebScript". WebAssembly, WebGPU, WebRTC, WebWorkers. It fits. And it seems like there's no active trademark for it too (although I admittedly did not do a super sophisticated search). The “Java” prefix still confuses new users, not to mention "bizdev" people, and probably leads to legal issues beyond just the trademark. "JavaScript" has always sucked as a name, we're just used to it now. Why are we fighting so hard for it? Let's just take this as an opportunity to name it something that actually makes sense. It will maybe be sort of annoying for a few years, but I'm certain one day we'll look back and not believe we used to call it "JAVA Script".

andyferris 1y ago
I mean... did Oracle consult the government in Jakarta about their use of the term Java? There are more than 100 million people there and we squabble about the conotations of the name of a programming with the name of another programming language whose name has connotations about someone elses island which is actually a connotation about some coffee some programmers drank who felt Jolt Cola is so Microsoft and isn't as cool as freshly roasted beans anymore (...in 1996). But WebScript I could actually get behind! (if the case fails)
- tolmasky 1y ago
  I agree that Oracle's case has no merit, for all sorts of reasons. But the time investment is asymmetric. It is easy for them to drag their feet, it is easy for them to confuse the judge who is almost certainly unfamiliar with the bizarre naming history of this language, and they have nothing better to do. Oracle can throw 100 interchangeable lawyers at this. Meanwhile, this is sucking the time of unique individuals like Ryan Dahl. It is a tragedy that his attention should go to this. But this is especially so given that JavaScript isn't even a good name. It would be one thing to fight this on principle if the name was great, but it isn't. In fact, the name was specifically originally chosen due to its confusion-causing powers -- the unfortunate reality is that JavaScript was chosen precisely to ride the coattails of the then hot new technology Java. This was a horrible idea from day one. No one would suggest I name a new unrelated programming language "SwiftScript" or "RustScript" today to benefit from the popularity of those languages. It would be both tacky and shortsighted. Is it tacky enough to change in isolation? No, it would just be yet another unfortunate part of tech culture, like "referer" only having 3 r's instead of 4. But it absolutely is tacky enough to give up if we are facing some huge case against an actor that is quite literally infamous for their stubbornness in court. No one at Oracle is thinking about this for longer than 5 minutes, while it is causing tremendous grief to Ryan and half the JavaScript community. Why give them that? Let Oracle own all the shitty Java-related trademarks. We're not even handing them a win. The JS trademark will become worthless once we all switch to WebScript, and as an added bonus it won't even accidentally provide even a tiny bit of free marketing for any other their technologies like JavaScript maybe does today. Their reward can be a step further toward of obscurity, self-excising themselves from their current unearned appearance in the history of the web whenever JavaScript is mentioned.

joshdavham 1y ago

Will Oracle always legally own the JavaScript trademark? Or is there an eventual expiry date when it will become “public domain”, etc?

Tempest1981 1y ago
Patents and Copyrights expire. Trademarks can be renewed indefinitely.
- joshdavham 1y ago
  Oof.

neuroelectron 1y ago

That would be a shame if Oracle killed JavaScript.