An end to Oracle's JavaScript trademark demands Deno
Deno has filed an application with the US Patent and Trademark Office to cancel Oracle's JavaScript trademark. The language is to be recognized as a public good.
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The company Deno, which is behind the JavaScript runtime of the same name, Deno, is seeking to have the JavaScript trademark released. The trademark currently held by Oracle is to be dropped in order to avoid legal uncertainties.
Deno has filed a formal request with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to cancel the Oracle trademark.
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Programming language as a public good
In a blog post, Deno founder Ryan Dahl describes the petition as a "decisive step on the way to freeing JavaScript from legal entanglements and recognizing it as a public good."
This would allow conferences, for example, to use JavaScript in their names without having to fear legal action from Oracle.
Three points against a trademark
Deno justifies the application with three central points. Firstly, JavaScript has established itself as a generic term for the programming language described in the ECMA 262 language specification.
Deno's second point is that Oracle submitted fraudulent evidence when renewing the JavaScript trademark in 2019. This includes a screenshot of the Node.js website. Ryan Dahl created the JavaScript runtime environment Node.js, as did Deno, and Oracle is not involved in any way.
Finally, Oracle has effectively abandoned the brand by not using it and has not offered any significant products or services for JavaScript for years.
Open letter signed by the JavaScript inventor
Ryan Dahl had already written an open letter to Oracle in September 2022, asking them to release the JavaScript trademark. This was followed in September 2024 by another open letter signed by over 14,000 members of the JavaScript community, including the inventor of the language, Brendan Eich.
Eich had originally developed the language as part of a collaboration between Netscape and Sun Microsystems, and the latter company had secured the trademark rights to JavaScript. These ultimately ended up with Oracle following the Sun takeover.
Ready to fight for deletion
Oracle has until January 4, 2025 to respond to the request. If the company responds or does not respond at all, the patent authority is likely to grant the request for deletion.
In his blog post, Dahl writes that he is otherwise prepared to fight and uses public perception as a sharp weapon: "Every step of the process, including all communication with Oracle, is shared transparently with the community." Dahl has opened a public discussion on the application on Hacker News.
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(rme)
