Deno Land, developer of Deno execution for JavaScript, Typescript, and Webassembly, filed a petition about the abolition of a trademark Oracle on the term “JavaScript” in the department for patents and trademarks of the United States (USPTO). The petition claims that Oracle illegally holds the rights to this term, providing false data when submitting an application.
The main arguments of Deno are that “JavaScript” is a generally accepted term, Oracle does not use it for commercial purposes, and the application for registration of the trademark was submitted using fraudulent evidence. In particular, Oracle introduced screenshots of the site nodejs.org as confirmation of commercial use of the term.
Ryan Dal, the founder of Deno and the creator of Node.js, noted that the company has repeatedly tried to resolve this issue peacefully. In 2022, Dal sent Oracle an open letter with a request to abandon the trademark, but did not receive an answer. In September 2024, he repeated the attempt to collecting signatures from more than 14 thousand developers, but Oracle again ignored the appeal.
Dal explained that the purpose of Deno is to eliminate legal barriers to use the term “JavaScript” in products, events, and names of organizations. According to him, the existing trademark creates confusion and leads to unnecessary restrictions, including warnings of violation of rights.
It is interesting that the organizers of the JSCONF conference chose this name to avoid the legal consequences associated with the full term “The JavaScript Conference”. Similar incidents, including requests for the refusal of using the term, previously occurred with other projects.
The petition also claims that Oracle does not actually use the term “JavaScript” in its products, which may be the basis for canceling the trademark. If Oracle does not respond to the USPTO request until January 4, 2025, Deno may win by default.
Dahl expressed the hope that Oracle admits that JavaScript belongs to the global community of developers, not one company. However, he also stated that in the event of a dispute, Deno is ready to submit evidence confirming the failure to use the trademark in accordance with the law.