| ▲ | StableAlkyne 6 hours ago |
| It's less the fact that someone owns JS's trademark, and more that it's specifically Oracle (they got it when they bought Sun). Oracle is an incredibly litigious company. Their awful reputation in this respect means that the JS ecosystem can never be sure they won't swoop in and attempt to demand rent someday. This is made worse by the army of lawyers they employ; even if they're completely in the wrong, whatever project they go after probably won't be able to afford a defense. |
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| ▲ | rdtsc 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| > Oracle is an incredibly litigious company. Their awful reputation in this respect means that the JS ecosystem can never be sure they won't swoop in and attempt to demand rent someday. This is made worse by the army of lawyers they employ; even if they're completely in the wrong, whatever project they go after probably won't be able to afford a defense. That is why on one level I am surprised by the petition. They are talking to a supercharged litigation monster and are asking it "Dear Oracle, ... We urge you to release the mark into the public domain". You know what a litigation happy behemoth does in that case? It goes asks some AI to write a "Javascript: as She Is Spoke" junk book on Amazon just so they can hang on to the trademark. Before they didn't care but now that someone pointed it out, they'll go out of their way to assert their usage of it. On the other hand, maybe someone there cares about their image and would be happy to improve it in the tech community's eyes... |
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| ▲ | thayne an hour ago | parent [-] | | > It goes asks some AI to write a "Javascript: as She Is Spoke" junk book on Amazon just so they can hang on to the trademark. IANAL, but I don't think that wouldn't be enough to keep the trademark. Also the petition was a "we'll ask nicely first so we can all avoid the hastle and expense of legal procedings", they are now in the process of getting the trademark invalidated, but Oracle, illogically but perhaps unsurprisingly is fighting it. | | |
| ▲ | rdtsc an hour ago | parent [-] | | I was just using it as an example of doing the absolute minimum. They could write a dumb Javascript debugger or something with minimal effort. But yeah, IANAL either and just guessing, I just know Oracle is shady and if you challenge them legally they'll throw their weight around. And not sure if responding to a challenge with a new "product" is enough to reset the clock on it. Hopefully a the judge will see through their tricks. |
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| ▲ | levkk 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| That's why courts don't take hypothetical cases. Someone has to be injured to demonstrate actual harm. Are there any examples of Oracle using their JavaScript trademark to sue anyone? If they did, that petition would have merit. Unless Demo was, this feels like a marketing project. And it's working, too, so kudos. |
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| ▲ | wongarsu an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | Trademark law is kind of about hypotheticals though. The purpose of a trademark is to prevent theoretical damages from potential confusion, neither of which you ever have to show to be real In this case the trademark existing and belonging to Oracle is creating more confusion than no trademark existing, so deleting it is morally right. And because Oracle isn't actually enforcing it it is also legally right Imho this is just the prelude to get better press. "We filed a petition to delete the JavaScript trademark" doesn't sound nearly as good as "We collected 100k signatures for a letter to Oracle and only got silence, now we formally petition the USPTO". It's also a great opportunity to find pro-bono legal council or someone who would help fund the petition | |
| ▲ | anematode 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | It's the specter of a lawsuit that's the problem. | |
| ▲ | hoten 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | The other aspect here is that general knowledge (citation needed) says that if a company doesn't actively defend their trademark, they often won't be able to keep it if challenged in court. Or perhaps general knowledge is wrong. |
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| ▲ | amelius 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| At this point I'm going to assume that adding -Script to a trademarked name allows me to use that name freely. |
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| ▲ | onion2k 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Assuming Oracle did decide to go down that route, who would they sue? No one really uses the JavaScript name in anything official except for "JavaScriptCore" that Apple ships with Webkit. |
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| ▲ | Orygin 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Afaik they already sued Deno: https://deno.com/blog/deno-v-oracle2 Edit: Seems I'm incorrect, see below | | |
| ▲ | saghm 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | I had no idea this was a thing! I'm surprised this didn't attract more attention. | | |
| ▲ | Orygin 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | My bad, after reading more it seems Deno is trying to get Oracle's trademark revoked, but I found out that "Rust for Javascript" devs have received a cease and desist from Oracle regarding the JS trademark, which may have triggered Deno to go after Oracle. |
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| ▲ | chuckadams 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > who would they sue Anyone they feel like. Lawnmower gonna mow. |
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| ▲ | TeaVMFan 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| The incredibly litigious company here is Deno. Deno sued on a whim, realized they were massively unprepared, then asked the public to fund a legal campaign that will benefit Deno themselves, a for-profit, VC-backed company. This personal vendetta will likely end with the community unable to use the term JavaScript. Nobody should support this. |
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| ▲ | striking 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Your comment seems incredibly confused. 1. Oracle is the litigious one here. My favorite example is that time they attacked a professor for publishing less-than-glowing benchmarks of their database: https://danluu.com/anon-benchmark/ What's to stop them from suing anyone using the term JavaScript in a way that isn't blessed by them? That's what Deno is trying to protect against. 2. Deno is filing a petition to cancel the trademark, not claim it themselves. This would return it to the public commons. It should be obvious from these two facts that any member of the public that uses JavaScript should support this, regardless of what they think of Deno-the-company. | |
| ▲ | jakelazaroff 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > This personal vendetta will likely end with the community unable to use the term JavaScript. Nobody should support this. Why would that be the case, if not for Oracle's litigiousness? | |
| ▲ | DonHopkins 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Hi Larry Ellison! Will you mow my lawn? |
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