Who Owns the JavaScript Trademark? The Untold Story Behind Oracle’s Claim

I have been using JavaScript for over 20 years, yet I was unaware that Oracle holds the JavaScript trademark; I would actually prefer Mozilla to own it.

On September 3, 2022, Ryan Dahl, creator of Node.js and Deno.js, wrote an open letter to Oracle requesting that the JavaScript trademark be placed in the public domain.

He described the trademark as a cloud over the world’s most popular programming language, causing cautious engineers to avoid it and leading to confusing terms like ECMAScript.

Dahl cited the original 1995 Netscape press release announcing JavaScript.

In 1995, Netscape partnered with Sun Microsystems; Brendan Eich created the first version of JavaScript in just ten days. Sun registered the “JavaScript” trademark, which Oracle inherited when it acquired Sun in 2009.

The trademark has long caused people to mistakenly think JavaScript is a variant of Java.

At the time, Netscape explicitly described JavaScript as a “complement and integration” to Java, intended to interact with Java applets and HTML forms, though the two languages share little in common beyond curly‑brace syntax.

Brendan Eich recently called the name “a lie,” noting it has little relation to Java and is only linked to its common ancestor, C.

Commercially, trademark protection prevents competitors from copying or counterfeiting a product.

Microsoft’s early Internet Explorer implementation was called JScript, later followed by a .NET version.

Netscape and other companies worked with Ecma International to standardize the language, resulting in the neutral name ECMAScript.

Eich remarked that “ECMAScript sounds like a skin disease, an unwelcome trademark name.”

When Oracle acquired Sun in 2010, it also acquired the JavaScript trademark, meaning only Oracle can license the use of the name JavaScript.

Dahl pointed out that Oracle has no product that actually uses the trademark.

According to Hacker News comments, Oracle provides GraalVM, which includes a JavaScript implementation:

In previous years, Oracle asked Apple to remove an app that used the JavaScript name without authorization.

Oracle’s trademark guidelines mention Java and MySQL but not JavaScript, stating that proper use strengthens the brand and prevents the name from becoming generic.

If Dahl’s letter does not persuade Oracle to relax the trademark, JavaScript may be renamed ECMAScript or LiveScript.

21CTO will continue to monitor this story.