USPTO petitioned to cancel Oracle's JavaScript trademark | Hacker News Reader

USPTO petitioned to cancel Oracle's JavaScript trademark

infoworld.com

86 pointsoldnetguy25 comments

> The petition to the USPTO also accuses Oracle of committing fraud in 2019 in its renewal efforts for the trademark by submitting screen captures of the Node.js website. “Node.js is not affiliated with Oracle, and the use of screen captures of the ‘nodejs.org’ website as a specimen did not show any use of the mark by Oracle or on behalf of Oracle,” the petition states."

From http://www.nerdware.org/doc/abriefhistory.html

> 1995 - Brendan Eich reads up on every mistake ever made in designing a programming language, invents a few more, and creates LiveScript. Later, in an effort to cash in on the popularity of Java the language is renamed JavaScript. Later still, in an effort to cash in on the popularity of skin diseases the language is renamed ECMAScript.

> Later still, in an effort to cash in on the popularity of skin diseases the language is renamed ECMAScript.

It does spread like a disease, though. /s

I couldn't help but read wikipedia and wonder if you could call him a scheming schemer?

Eich started work at Netscape Communications Corporation in April 1995. He originally joined intending to put Scheme "in the browser", but his Netscape superiors insisted that the language's syntax resemble that of Java. As a result, Eich devised a language that had much of the functionality of Scheme, the object-orientation of Self, and the syntax of Java. He completed the first version in ten days in order to accommodate the Navigator 2.0 Beta release schedule. At first the language was called Mocha, but it was renamed LiveScript in September 1995 and finally – in a joint announcement with Sun Microsystems – it was named JavaScript in December.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Eich#Netscape

That's probably the right thing to do, but "Javascipt" was always a terrible name for it. It has nothing whatsoever to do with Java. It was just an early bit of dotcom marketing. They had aspirations of getting the two to work together, but they gave up on that almost immediately.

For a while, Google would conflate Java and Javascript when searching. That was really aggravating.

"ECMAScript" isn't a great name, either, but it at least doesn't confuse people. Personally, I liked "Livescript" as a name.

browserscript, since that's where it originated, even though it's outgrown that.

Lets just call it scriptscript and move on :)

I misread that as "Superscript" and rather like it

How about "JahScript" since it is the lord of the scripting languages?

I think this would violate the second commandment of the Decalogue.

It needs to be WebScript of course!

You don't have to look far to find one language naming itself to associate itself with another language it isn't really related to. E.g. C# has very little in common with C. But, ironically, it's popularity likely played a role in the naming of J#. Not to mention all the flavors of BASIC that resemble virtually nothing like the original.

"ES" seems to be the long term winning acronym ("ESM" for the module format, other things like that), so maybe something "backwards compatible" with that like "EverywhereScript" or "EternalScript"?

(Harder to find "JS" compatibles, too. "JunkScript"? I know a lot of people wouldn't mind that one, but it does seem too mean.)

Engaging in legal dispute with Oracle seems like a risky endeavor. People joke about the company consisting from 90% legal department for a reason.

What would the plaintiff or the public stand to gain from Oracle relinquishing the trademark?

I can't see the plaintiff gaining anything really. Maybe he's just fed up and decided to do something about it.

TFA:

> Dahl said Oracle’s ownership “has caused confusion and unnecessary barriers, including cease-and-desist letters sent to organizations for simply using the term ‘JavaScript’ in their names.” The USPTO filing marks a pivotal step toward freeing the JavaScript name from legal entanglements, Dahl said.

This is great, I think this has an excellent chance.

The biggest argument Oracle would have is GraalVM but that supports primarily Java and many other languages. I'm not even sure that Oracle at this point would want to conflate Javascript and Java. (Which may be why they haven't cited GraalVM as a use of the JS mark in commerce in their trademark filings).

Here's a recent podcast episode chapter where the author of the original petition talks out the argument, https://changelog.com/jsparty/340#t=3409.

[dupe] Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42239263

Wow, TIL "JavaScript" is a trademark. I'm sure it's unenforceable now due to the term becoming ubiquituous.

JavaScript is a common name, shouldn't be trademarked

> has not sold any JavaScript goods or rendered any JavaScript services since acquiring the trademark from Sun Microsystems in 2009.

I find this hard to believe.

Somewhere in the 159,000 employees of Oracle, someone has made and sold some product using the javascript brand.

Just a single example of "Javascript" written on a spec sheet of some product would be enough to defend the trademark.

> Just a single example of "Javascript" written on a spec sheet of some product would be enough to defend the trademark.

Is that really true? Doesn’t it have to be used as a trademark? If they just mention the programming language in generic terms rather than as something specifically owned and sold by Oracle, would that really be enough? That’s exactly what you would expect from a generic term - that it would be used generically.

No, it wouldn't. Simple use of JavaScript somewhere isn't enough for this.

Oracle would need to show vigorous trademark enforcement. I use 'JavaScript' generically, with no reference to Oracle or a trademark, and have never heard from an Oracle lawyer. I had no idea who the current owner of the trademark was.

I bet 95% of people who use the term have no idea it has any connection to Oracle's legal department.

At this point, there are probably millions of .js files out there. If Oracle wished to enforce all of these moving to .es for ECMAScript, they would have needed to start that process a long, long time ago.

Oracle's own documentation uses this term generically:

https://docs.oracle.com/en/database/oracle/apex/22.1/aexjs/t...

To the contrary, a use like this doesn't support the trademark, but pretty much invalidates it entirely.

> No, it wouldn't. Simple use of JavaScript somewhere isn't enough for this.

> Oracle would need to show vigorous trademark enforcement.

It sounds like the current approach is to challenge the registration based on abandonment by non-use. The defense against a challenge of non-use is an example of the trademark being used (by the holder or a licensee) in trade.

A challenge based on abandonment by non-enforcement is also possible, but non-use is easier to show.

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