Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Oracle owns “JavaScript”, so Apple is taking down my app

reddit.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 206 posts

Re: Oracle owns “JavaScript”, so Apple is taking down my app

#181

Post by arkades »

CamTin wrote: post #167
arkades wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no lawyers in this thread, huh? My wife is a corporate lawyer, so ive seen a little bit of these shenanigans from her perspective. And it pretty much boils down to this: there are certain risks lawyers can take and keep their jobs, and risks they will lose their jobs over. Like everyone else, they do not enjoy unemployment. Saying “this business idea is fine, go for it” and it succeeds? They get no credit.…

Legislators and lobbyists are mainly lawyers

Legislators are mostly lawyers, by tradition. They comprise a barely measurable fraction of 1% of lawyers. They do not make laws to create work for lawyers, as is usually implied in these discussions.

Re: Oracle owns “JavaScript”, so Apple is taking down my app

#182

Post by arkades »

cryptonector wrote: post #174
arkades wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no lawyers in this thread, huh? My wife is a corporate lawyer, so ive seen a little bit of these shenanigans from her perspective. And it pretty much boils down to this: there are certain risks lawyers can take and keep their jobs, and risks they will lose their jobs over. Like everyone else, they do not enjoy unemployment. Saying “this business idea is fine, go for it” and it succeeds? They get no credit.…

It is perfectly permissible to not defend a trademark. A lawyer is not obligated, and cannot, make a trademark owner defend it. A lawyer is obligated to provide legal advice to their customers regarding their trademarks. But defending a trademark is a business decision, and the law does not require it -- you are allowed to let a trademark become generic. Lawyers should not make their customers' business decisions. Bu…

> t is perfectly permissible to not defend a trademark. A lawyer is not obligated, and cannot, make a trademark owner defend it.

When I said “defend as required by law,” I meant “defend the IP in the specific manner dictated by our laws,” not that one is obligated to defend it at all. Eg, suing people to prevent IP from becoming generic is the defense that is recognized in our legal tradition - thus, if they are to defend it, the conservative must follow this route.

Re: Oracle owns “JavaScript”, so Apple is taking down my app

#183

Post by phpnode »

_bxg1 wrote: post #176
codetrotter wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. When they said: > The unauthorized display of our client's intellectual property is likely to cause consumers encountering this app to mistakenly believe that it emanates from, or is provided under a license from, Oracle. I think most of us would agree that no , literally almost no one familiar with JavaScript would have believed that app to “emanate from, or be provided under a license from, Oracle”. I know…

I am primarily a JavaScript developer by trade and I literally didn't know it even originated at Oracle. And I'm sure I'm not alone. The trademark should be invalidated.

It didn't originate there, they acquired the rights to the name when they bought sun

Re: Oracle owns “JavaScript”, so Apple is taking down my app

#184

Post by cryptonector »

arkades wrote: post #182
cryptonector wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is perfectly permissible to not defend a trademark. A lawyer is not obligated, and cannot, make a trademark owner defend it. A lawyer is obligated to provide legal advice to their customers regarding their trademarks. But defending a trademark is a business decision, and the law does not require it -- you are allowed to let a trademark become generic. Lawyers should not make their customers' business decisions. Bu…

> t is perfectly permissible to not defend a trademark. A lawyer is not obligated, and cannot, make a trademark owner defend it. When I said “defend as required by law,” I meant “defend the IP in the specific manner dictated by our laws,” not that one is obligated to defend it at all. Eg, suing people to prevent IP from becoming generic is the defense that is recognized in our legal tradition - thus, if they are to d…

Indeed, but it should still be a business decision.

It's absolutely clear that suing, say, Google, over JavaScript mark misuse would be a big deal business decision at Oracle, while sending a cease&desist letter over some piddly app in the iOS store is almost certainly not. But there is a cost to the latter, in that it destroys goodwill to be overly and unnecessarily aggressive in enforcement of a mark that arguably is now generic. This should be a business decision, not a legal one.

Re: Oracle owns “JavaScript”, so Apple is taking down my app

#186

Post by CamTin »

arkades wrote: post #181
CamTin wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Legislators and lobbyists are mainly lawyers

Legislators are mostly lawyers, by tradition. They comprise a barely measurable fraction of 1% of lawyers. They do not make laws to create work for lawyers, as is usually implied in these discussions.

They also don't see the justice system through the eyes of a non-lawyer. If they did, we would likely see a lot of reforms that tried to simplify the courts and reduce the price of justice for ordinary citizens. As it is, that price is basically beyond the reach of most of us, unless the potential settlement is large enough that a lawyer will take it on speculatively. We've turned the Common Law from something that citizens can use to get justice for wrongs against them into something that is only accessible by corporations, or by people so wealthy that their financial and business lives operate as corporations do.

Justice has always been for sale. What's happened is that the price has increased to the point where most of us can't afford it.

Re: Oracle owns “JavaScript”, so Apple is taking down my app

#187

Post by zaxomi »

eftychis wrote: post #138
giancarlostoro wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I had to explain Oracle to anyone I would only say that their motto is simply "Do all evil."

It does seem they always go for the path that will maximize profits, evil (note not a legal term, but a moral one) and pull everyone down to the bottom with their actions. I am convinced if there was a crossroads with a payout of x dollars for both choices, but with a pretty nasty outcome for the community for choice y as the distinguishing factor, Oracle would pick y in a heartbeat. I think a good description for Or…

Manny many years ago, I read a story about Oracle:

In a big budget project, they had implemented a report, like sales per month or something similar. The requirement was to sort the result by month. Any sane person would sort it by the order the months happens in a year, like January, February, March, etc... But not Oracle: April, August, December, February, January, July, June, March, May, November, October, September.

Technically they are sorted... and they requirements only said sort by month. To get it fixed the customer had to pay Oracle more money, since they changed changed the requirements.

Re: Oracle owns “JavaScript”, so Apple is taking down my app

#188

Post by kangnkodos »

kbumsik wrote: post #52

What is the name of the app? It is unclear if the OP uses "JavaScript" in the title of the app, or just "JavaScript" appears in the description or the content of the app. I guess they are quite different cases.

The reddit OP is selling a product (an app) with the word "JavaScript" in the name of the product. That's the problem.

That's completely different than using the word JavaScript to describe your product.

It's also different than using the word JavaScript in an open source project, such as a github repository.

---

Also, everyone is assuming that Oracle has demanded this. It could be that some over-eager lawyer at Apple set up a rule which says that any trademark cannot be in the name of an app. Until I hear some evidence that Oracle demanded this, I think this is an Apple issue. Can you sell an app with this name on Google Play?

Re: Oracle owns “JavaScript”, so Apple is taking down my app

#189

Post by Tiksi »

matte_black wrote: post #155
kitd wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you truly believe that? Just asking ...

Do you? Seems like it struck a nerve with a lot of people. Not sure what their problem is.

I think the emphasis on `you` made it seem as if you were directly attacking the parent.
Post reply on HN