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Comment by steve_adams_86 | Hacker News Reader

Brendan Eich said "ECMAScript was always an unwanted trade name that sounds like a skin disease". I think the general sentiment is shared fairly broadly.

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Yep. There are also many of us that wish it'd stuck out of a deep seated love for truth in advertising.

Microsoft called their version "JScript", including JScript.NET.

When JavaScript was created, Java was a trademark of Sun Microsystems.

Then Oracle acquired Sun, and with it, the trademark to Java.

And then this crap started. That was the moment to drop "Java" from the name, everyone knows exactly why.

The issue is not with the "Java" trademark (also owned by Oracle), but the "JavaScript" trademark, which was issued to Sun in 1997.

JavaScript was released in 1996... and not at Sun.

i.e the Language and name both pre-date the trademark.

I'm not a lawyer, but I have a few trademarks myself, and I believe it's possible to apply for a trademark even if the language or term predates it. However, if there's a significant gap between the language's release and the trademark application, that could raise other questions. For example, if JavaScript was created in the '70s but Oracle applied for the trademark in the late '90s, when the language became popular, that could be a more complicated case. In this instance, though, there's only a one-year difference! It's quite common for businesses to file for trademarks after they see value in protecting a term.

By the way, when I filed my first trademark application, Sun Microsystems filed an opposition. What a coincidence! This was before Oracle acquired them.

It does sound like a skin disease

Javascript is used so widely now that calling it just “Script” is probably fair and would be a lot harder to trademark

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