Deno has faced a setback in its attempt to get Oracle to relinquish the JavaScript Trademark. The US Patents Office Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) dismissed Deno's fraud claim which is one the three strands of its case against Oracle. Deno's focus going forward is the other two - genericness and abandonment.

As outlined in The Strange Case Of the JavaScript Trademark, Deno's petition to the USPTO regarding the JavaScript trademark stems from a prolonged effort to have Oracle relinquish control over the term. The initial push began in September 2022 with an open letter from Ryan Dahl, co-founder of Deno Land, urging Oracle to release the trademark to the public domain. This request went unanswered, highlighting the challenges posed by Oracle's hold on the trademark.

After a second open letter in September 2024, supported by a petition with nearly 16,000 signatures also failed to elicit a response, Deno initiated a formal cancellation process with the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). This formal petition was filed in November 2024 and is built on three key claims: that Oracle has abandoned the trademark through non-use, that "JavaScript" has become a generic term, and an accusation of fraudulent behavior during Oracle's 2019 trademark renewal. Specifically that Oracle submitted screenshots of Node.js as evidence of "use in commerce" an action, Deno contended that constituted a violation of trademark law sufficient to invalidate the renewal.

When Oracle responded in February 2025 it was only in regard to the fraud claim. In a motion to dismiss Deno's petition Oracle acknowledged submitting the Node.js screenshot, but argued it was irrelevant as it had also submitted a different specimen. In March Deno opposed this motion, asserting that misrepresenting someone else’s project to maintain a federal trademark is a serious issue and that a second specimen does not excuse the deception and Oracle filed an optional reply, reiterating that the Node.js specimen was irrelevant and that the fraud claim should be dismissed without amendment. It took until June 18, 2025 for the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board to officially dismiss Deno's fraud claim, giving Deno the opportunity to file an amendment but, despite disagreeing with this decision, Deno considers amending the fraud claim would significantly delay the overall case.

Deno's focus now shifts to the remaining two core arguments. The first  is that the term "JavaScript" is universally recognized, making it generic and that by law trademarks that have become generic cannot remain trademarks. The second is  abandonment - Oracle itself does not have any products or service that it used the trademark for.

As Ryan Dahl put it in his recent blog post:

Everyone uses “JavaScript” to describe a language—not a brand. Not an Oracle product. Just the world’s most popular programming language.

On August 7, Oracle has to  respond to every paragraph of Deno's cancellation petition and it will be interesting how it tries to counter these two arguments. 

• Ian Elliot is the author of several books on JavaScript, principally JavaScript Async which covers asynchronous programming in JavaScript, async/await, Promises, Service Workers and so on and Just JavaScript: An Idiomatic Approach,which is intended for programmers who are familiar with another language and takes a radical look at JavaScript that takes account of the way it is object-based. 

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