From http://www.nerdware.org/doc/abriefhistory.html
> 1995 - Brendan Eich reads up on every mistake ever made in designing a programming language, invents a few more, and creates LiveScript. Later, in an effort to cash in on the popularity of Java the language is renamed JavaScript. Later still, in an effort to cash in on the popularity of skin diseases the language is renamed ECMAScript.
That's probably the right thing to do, but "Javascipt" was always a terrible name for it. It has nothing whatsoever to do with Java. It was just an early bit of dotcom marketing. They had aspirations of getting the two to work together, but they gave up on that almost immediately.
For a while, Google would conflate Java and Javascript when searching. That was really aggravating.
"ECMAScript" isn't a great name, either, but it at least doesn't confuse people. Personally, I liked "Livescript" as a name.
Engaging in legal dispute with Oracle seems like a risky endeavor. People joke about the company consisting from 90% legal department for a reason.
What would the plaintiff or the public stand to gain from Oracle relinquishing the trademark?
This is great, I think this has an excellent chance.
The biggest argument Oracle would have is GraalVM but that supports primarily Java and many other languages. I'm not even sure that Oracle at this point would want to conflate Javascript and Java. (Which may be why they haven't cited GraalVM as a use of the JS mark in commerce in their trademark filings).
Here's a recent podcast episode chapter where the author of the original petition talks out the argument, https://changelog.com/jsparty/340#t=3409.
[dupe] Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42239263
Wow, TIL "JavaScript" is a trademark. I'm sure it's unenforceable now due to the term becoming ubiquituous.
JavaScript is a common name, shouldn't be trademarked
> has not sold any JavaScript goods or rendered any JavaScript services since acquiring the trademark from Sun Microsystems in 2009.
I find this hard to believe.
Somewhere in the 159,000 employees of Oracle, someone has made and sold some product using the javascript brand.
Just a single example of "Javascript" written on a spec sheet of some product would be enough to defend the trademark.
> The petition to the USPTO also accuses Oracle of committing fraud in 2019 in its renewal efforts for the trademark by submitting screen captures of the Node.js website. “Node.js is not affiliated with Oracle, and the use of screen captures of the ‘nodejs.org’ website as a specimen did not show any use of the mark by Oracle or on behalf of Oracle,” the petition states."