Petition filed to cancel Oracle’s trademark for JavaScript

Deno, a company that provides a JavaScript runtime, has filed a petition with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to cancel Oracle’s trademark for JavaScript, claiming the Java steward has abandoned it and that it should be free for use by the large community of developers using the language.

Ryan Dahl, co-creator of Deno and creator of node.js, wrote in a blog post on Monday (Nov.25) that the petition demonstrates that “Oracle has not offered significant products or services under the name ‘JavaScript’ in years,” and that Oracle’s JET (Java Extension Toolkit) or GraalVM do not constitute genuine use in commerce.

U.S. law says that trademarks that go unused for three consecutive years are abandoned, and Dahl wrote that Oracle’s “inaction clearly meets this threshold.”

A spokesperson for Oracle could not be reached.

Regarding the trademark, Dahl said that the community is confused by Oracle’s non-use of the mark, having to avoid using the term JavaScript in a community-run series of conferences on the subject that has been named JSConf. 

He went on to write that the language specification could just be simply known as the JavaScript Specification, replacing the unwieldy “ECMAScript-262 Specification,” and that the “Rust for JavaScript Developers” community would no longer fear legal threats over use of the term.

After writing a letter signed by Brendan Eich, the creator of the specification, and many others in the JavaScript space to Oracle asking it to free the term from trademark protection, the company’s silence promoted Dahl to formally petition the USPTO for relief.

According to Dahl, Oracle has until Jan. 4 to respond to the petition. If it doesn’t respond, the case would go into default and the trademark would be cancelled.

 

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