Kill Oracle's 'JavaScript' trademark, Deno asks USPTO

Deno Land, maker of the Deno runtime for JavaScript, TypeScript, and WebAssembly, has filed a petition with the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to cancel Oracle's JavaScript trademark.

The petition seeks to undo a legal barrier that has deterred the JavaScript community from referring to the programming language in various commercial contexts. It argues that Oracle's trademark rights in the word should be discontinued because: "JavaScript" is a generic term; Oracle allegedly committed fraud when filing for the trademark; and the database giant isn't actually using the trademark for commercial purposes.

"This filing marks a pivotal step toward freeing the name 'JavaScript' from legal entanglements and recognizing it as a public good, shared and maintained by the global developer community," said Ryan Dahl, founder of Deno and the creator of Node.js, in a blog post on Monday.

Dahl asked Oracle to surrender its JavaScript trademark ...