Posts by wbqqq

Oracle starts laying mines in JavaScript trademark battle

Generic Term is key

Do a simple google search of javascript - all the first few matches are text like "What is JavaScript? JavaScript is the programming language of the web." and not a TM or ® in sight.

How to prove? go to any large tech conference, randomly poll 200 people with 3 questions:

- do you know what javascript refers to?

- who owns or controls javascript?

- are you aware that it is a trademark?

I'd be shocked if Oracle was mentioned in even 5% of the answers to the first 2 questions, and if more than 20% said yes, nevermind mentioning Oracle, to the third I'd be tempted to just give up.

perhaps a nuanced ruling might be that "JavaScript" (upper case J & S) is an Oracle-owned trademark, but "javascript" and "js" are generic terms (and hence not trademarkable)

UK air traffic woes caused by 'invalid flight plan data'

Re: Days of delays are their fall back.

I think that the time to recover is actually more key that the 'failure' of the NATS system. From a system perspective - the issue of redundancy is more an issue for the airlines - granted the NATS stoppage caused an across-the-board 4 hour delay, but the fact that it takes a week (rather than a day) to recover from the shock is due to most airlines running at 90%+ efficiency. If the airlines ran at 75% efficiency, most of the impact would probably have been addressed in a day, and the costs to the airlines more like £20m or less. But then they'd have to have higher fares...

Ultimately, Low Fares => high efficiency => low redundancy => long time to recover from a shock

ATC to pay compensation => higher ATC fees => higher fares

It really comes down to a trade-off between higher fares or risk of delays or compensation (cost<->time<->quality?)