Deno demands termination of Oracle’s JavaScript trademark

Deno, the company behind the JavaScript runtime of the same name Deno, aims to release a JavaScript brand. The trademarks currently held by Oracle should be removed to avoid legal uncertainties.

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Deno has registered with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Formal request to cancel the Oracle trademark Kept.

Programming language as a public good

In Deno founder Ryan Dahl described it in a blog post The petition was described as “an important step toward freeing JavaScript from legal entanglements and recognizing it as a public good.”

For example, it would allow conferences to have JavaScript in their name without fear of legal action from Oracle.

Three points against trademark

Deno justifies the application with three central points. On the one hand, JavaScript has established itself as a general term for the programming language In ECMA-262 language specification Is described.

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Deno’s second point is that Oracle presented evidence of fraud when it renewed the JavaScript trademark in 2019. It also includes a screenshot of the Node.js website. Ryan Dahl created Deno as well as the JavaScript runtime environment Node.js, and Oracle has no involvement.

Ultimately, Oracle abandoned the trademark due to not being used effectively and did not offer any significant products or services for JavaScript for years.

Open letter signed by JavaScript inventor

In September 2022, Ryan Dahl wrote an open letter to Oracle asking them to release the JavaScript trademarks. in september 2024 After this another open letter cameWhich was signed by about 14,000 members of the JavaScript community, including the language’s inventor, Brendan Eich.

Itch originally developed the language as part of a collaboration between Netscape and Sun Microsystems, and the latter company secured the trademark rights to JavaScript. With Sun’s acquisition, these eventually ended up at Oracle.

ready for extinction

Oracle has until January 4, 2025 to respond to the request. If the company shows understanding or does not respond at all, the patent authority may grant the deletion request.

In his blog post, Dahl writes that he is prepared to fight otherwise and use public perception as a sharp weapon: “Every step of the process, including all communications with Oracle, was shared transparently with the community. is done.” But Hacker News has a public Discussion on the application begins.

(rme)