JavaScript community challenges Oracle’s JavaScript trademark

In an open letter published September 16, Node.js and Deno creator Ryan Dahl, JavaScript creator Brendan Eich, and several other leading members of the JavaScript community have accused Oracle of abandoning the JavaScript trademark and urge the company to release the trademark to the public domain. By September 20, the letter had drawn more than 10,000 signatures.

Titled “Oracle, it’s time to free JavaScript,” the letter says that Oracle’s ownership of the JavaScript trademark is simply a relic of its 2009 acquisition of Sun Microsystems, that neither Sun nor Oracle ever built a product containing the mark, and that Oracle’s de facto abandonment of the trademark has caused widespread confusion and disruption.

Oracle turning over the trademark would alleviate confusion, said Dahl, CEO and co-founder of Deno Land, on September 19. “It would allow the official specification for JavaScript to actually say [JavaScript]. Currently it calls itself ‘ECMAScript.’ It would allow, for example, there to be a ‘JavaScript Conference,’” Dahl said. “It would allow companies, like Deno, to say things like ‘Deno is a JavaScript runtime’ without fear of legal action by Oracle.” Dahl and other JavaScript community members behind the online letter plan to file a petition with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in October to cancel the trademark.

A previous attempt two years ago to get Oracle to concede the trademark was ignored, Dahl said. “Broadly, I’m on a mission — often through my work with Deno — to improve and level up JavaScript, since it’s effectively the world’s default programming language,” Dahl said. “So much of human infrastructure is built on the web, and JavaScript, like HTTP, HTML, and CSS is a core part of what makes up the web. It’s definitely going to be around five years from now, if not 10 or 20 — so it’s really worth us building a good foundation for it.”

Oracle, asked for comment on the effort on September 19, had not responded to the inquiry. This week’s online petition argues that Oracle has never seriously offered a product called JavaScript.