Oracle Will Not Voluntarily Withdraw JavaScript Trademark

Post by extraduder_ire » Wed, Jan 08, 2025, 9:32 PM UTC

wodenokoto wrote: post #64

mananaysiempre wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Not a lawyer.) To have rights to a trademark, you have to use it in, well, trade. It’s not enough for a term to refer to a specific thing in normal usage, you must have a widely recognized claim on that thing. It should be in the customer’s interest that your thing not be confusable with thing-alikes that others may offer, specifically by having an exclusive right to be sold as the thing. And Oracle demonstrably doe…

Oracle has a pretty strong claim on Java, and JavaScript was named after Java explicitly to piggy-back on the that names recognition and success. It’s bit like saying McDonald’s shouldn’t have trademark claims on “McDonald’s carbonara” because they don’t deal in Italian cuisine (that much)

Post by nayuki » Wed, Jan 08, 2025, 10:31 PM UTC

physicles wrote: post #72

worthless-trash wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just call it Browserscript, and be done with it. Call it what it is.

ScriptyScript

Post by thiht » Thu, Jan 09, 2025, 10:30 AM UTC

worthless-trash wrote: post #84

thiht wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Call it what it is NOT Browserscript then. JS moved beyond the browser almost 3 decades ago (rhino.jar, anyone?) and became mainstream on the server side almost a decade ago.

But it hasn't.. its just a browser running headless on the server.

Post by svrtknst » Thu, Jan 09, 2025, 1:18 PM UTC

gklitz wrote: post #60

thayne wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

JavaScript can refer to the standard specification of ECMAScript, as well as the many implementations notably including v8 (chromium, node, deno), JavaScriptCore (webkit), and spidermonkey (Firefox), as well as some lesser known ones like duktape and QuickJS. And it can also be used to refer to an ECMAScript implementation plus an additional runtime platform like the Web API, or something like node or deno. And Oracl…

People use the term iPad to refer to non Apple tablets as well. That’s not an argument against Apples trademark. People may not like Oracle, but the arguments against them owning the trademark on the grounds that it’s used to refer to the thing that it actually is, are extemely weak. I can see the non-use argument being a viable path though.

Post by BrendanEich » Fri, Jan 10, 2025, 11:38 PM UTC

paxys wrote: post #17

coding123 wrote: post #8

Isn't the entire point of the term ecmascript created to resolve this?

Ecmascript was coined by ECMA International when they published the JS standard just to cover their ass and not get sued by Sun. It was never intended to be a name for the language, and has never been treated as such.