Huawei applies to trademark Hongmeng operating system

This article is more than 12 months old

Jun 14, 2019 06:00 am

LIMA/SHANGHAI: Huawei has applied to trademark its Hongmeng operating system (OS) in at least nine countries and Europe, in a sign it may be deploying a back-up plan as US sanctions threaten its business model.

This comes after the Trump administration put Huawei on a blacklist last month that barred it from doing business with US tech companies such as Alphabet, whose Android OS is used in Huawei's phones.

Since then, Huawei - the world's biggest maker of telecom network gear - has filed for a Hongmeng trademark in countries such as Cambodia, Canada, South Korea and New Zealand, data from the World Intellectual Property Organisation shows. It also filed an application in Peru on May 27, according to the country's anti-trust agency Indecopi.

Huawei has a back-up OS in case it is cut off from US-made software, Mr Richard Yu, chief executive of the its consumer division, told German newspaper Die Welt earlier this year.Its applications to trademark the OS show Huawei wants to use Hongmeng for gadgets ranging from smartphones, portable computers to robots and car televisions. - REUTERS