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Did you know that Oracle owns the trademark to Javascript?

Nick Karnik on October 04, 2018

I have used Javascript for over 20 years, but I was unaware that Oracle owned the trademark to Javascript. If anything, I would have guessed that M...
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Felicitas Pojtinger

Just call it EcmaScript, as it should be.

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dance2die profile image
Sung M. Kim

Sounds like a great idea.

I hate having to explain the difference between Java & JavaScript everytime like,

Java is to JavaScript
as Car is to Carpet

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John Alcher

I really don't like that analogy. They're both programming languages that share a lot of syntax, unlike a car and carpet that has zero correlations at all. We could probably find something better.

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dance2die profile image
Sung M. Kim • Edited

Yes you are right.

I should've mentioned that I use that analogy only for people with usually no development experience.

e.g.) My bro-in-law ask me about Java update prompt and confused why he had to update it when he remembers seeing JavaScript messages on the browser.

I just told him that analogy and they are different technologies with a similar name.

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alchermd profile image
John Alcher

I should've mentioned that I use that analogy only for people with usually no development experience.

In that context yeah it should be fine.

e.g.) My bro-in-law ask me about Java update prompt and confused why he had to update it when he remembers seeing JavaScript messages on the browser.

Funnily enough, I just realized that Java used to be widely used for client side interactivity -- while now JavaScript is huge for server side applications 😊

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Zaid Rehman

JavaScript contains slightly more stuff than ECMA specs(eg: The things which are added to support browsers)

So basically JavaScript and ECMAScript are different.

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Abraham

EcmaScript is an standard used by Javascript.

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David J Eddy

YESYEsYesyes

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stereobooster

Well, the story is: in early days there were browser wars, it was Netscape (current Mozilla) against internet explorer. Microsoft was a big player and Netscape joined forces with Sun to fight with IE, they renamed their new programing language LiveScript to JavaScript and made it trademark (because Sun already owned Java) so that Microsoft could not copy it (narrator voice: Microsoft copied). Microsoft created another language which is named JScript. Later they gave up this fight and joined forces as ECMAScript, which is the official name of JS right now.

(Disclaimer: I didn't do any fact check, this is from my head as I remember it).

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Adrian B.G.

I remember the article but it is misleading, apple rejected it base on automatic bot that looked at all trademarks, Oracle did not requested it and the problem was fixed.
Probably Oracle cannot use it anymore, guess is more a Folk term by now 😁

Everything can be trademarked, for example now Bitcoin asso iations were created to fight companies that try to trademaek the term, and tries to keep it free.

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Nick Karnik

I was thinking about that since it didn't mention anywhere that Oracle asked for it to be taken down.

Why do you say Oracle cannot use it anymore?

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Eugene Cheah • Edited

There would be arguable grounds that the trademark term has been "Genericide". However until it is proven in court, its not official.

Its a situation, where a trademark has gain such popularity and dominance over a term, that its trademark will no longer apply. Allowing even their competitors to use the same term, like almost every other english term in the dictionary.

Some well known example would be

  • Dumpster
  • Thermos
  • Hovercraft
  • Dry Ice
  • Heroine

These were actual trade mark terms that gotten so popular, they have lost their trademarks.

This is actually part of the reason why you would see "Google" putting their name on a 101 products, because some would argue "Google" has come to mean "Online Search" and hence no longer a trademark. While on the other hand, Google would argue it doesnt just mean search, but a 101 other different things and hence still a trademark. (Legals 🤷)

This is a very complicated legal topic, and Wiki would have a much more elaborate explanation : en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_trad...

So if im guessing, I would bet Oracle wouldn't sue over such a term, as it would just open a can of worms of it potentially being generalized.

Disclaimer : I am not a lawyer

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Andrew Bone

I think it would be indefensible, that being said IE's interpretation of ECMAScript was called JScript specifically to avoid a fight.

'Javascript' has been trademarked since Netscape introduced it, 23 years ago.

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theoutlander profile image
Nick Karnik

True. Although, Sun owned the trademark. I don't know if it had purchased Netscape and inherited it.

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Andrew Bone

Looks like they introduced it together.

tech-insider.org/java/research/199...

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theoutlander profile image
Nick Karnik

Good find. That is internet gold! I didn’t know that part of JavaScript’s history. I guess it was a couple of years before I got into web development.

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Eljay-Adobe

JavaScript was originally called LiveScript, and was developed under the codename Mocha.

Try to call JavaScript something else is probably too late.

EcmaScript, ActionScript, ExtendScript, LiveScript, Mocha... alas, that ship has sailed.

We can only blame marketing folks for the rebranding, and trying to ride the coattails of Java's popularity at that time.

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Sagar

"JavaScript" is a trademark of Oracle Corporation in the United States. It is used under license for technology invented and implemented by Netscape Communications and current entities such as the Mozilla Foundation. - Wikipedia

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Dustin King • Edited

In my opinion it's been Kleenexed. It's a formerly branded term that has taken on generic meaning, therefore (I think it could be argued, though I'm not a lawyer so don't quote me on this) the trademark is invalid.

I don't know if that's actually true of Kleenex. I just call them tissues. However, I've never used JavaScript to refer to a product of Sun Microsystems or Oracle.

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simov profile image
simo

Just rename it to [SomethingElse]Script already!

JavaScript is no good for obvious reasons.

ECMAScript is kind of weird.

LiveScript is cool but it's already taken. BTW that was the intended name before Sun intervened.

NeatScript sounds good too :)

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Brian Emilius

Scripty McScriptface
I'd vote for that

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Maria Zaitseva

It'd be pretty cool if everyone called it EcmaScript because that way nobody would ever confuse it with Java again.

Also language evolved quite a lot, it's no wonder people tend to explicitly refer to the recent dialect as ES6.

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Nick Karnik

That’s a very good point. I’m surprised that people still refer to it as Java! Not their fault though. Maybe Java is the reason Javascript gained popularity, lol.

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Tetranyble

Trust me I've never considered this neither asked questions regarding the trademark of JavaScript. Now I know

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Adarsh

Well now I am just afraid Oracle might do something similar to JavaScript like they did for Java with Java 11.

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stereobooster

They can't do anything with it. They own trademark, but do not drive its development. Development is done by TC39 committee (for ECMA org I guess)

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Rom

Wow, what a surprise, didn’t know this!

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Adam Crockett 🌀

JavaScript not Javascript if I do say so myself.

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Sunny Kr

No, that statement is not accurate. Oracle does not own the trademark to JavaScript. JavaScript, originally developed by Netscape, is a scripting language that is now standardized by the Ecma International organization under the name ECMAScript. The trademark for JavaScript is held by Oracle's subsidiary, Oracle America Inc., due to their acquisition of Sun Microsystems, which previously owned the trademark. However, it's important to note that JavaScript as a programming language is an open standard and widely used across different platforms and implementations.

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André Michel Andy

Yes, I knew it. That's why I would have liked "LiveScript" instead of "JavaScript", it would be less confusing and more attractive.

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Christian Melgarejo

What about "JayScript" with Jay as in crow? That can be a good way to preserve the file extensions, coloquial naming of "Jay-S" and have a cool logo with a badass bird.

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Moheshwar Amarnath Biswas

I found it right now from ecma-international.org/technical-c...