Huawei was suddenly caught by a cosmetic company on the HongmengOS brand

Tram Ho

After spending millions of dollars and nearly a decade of development, Huawei may have to find a new Chinese name for its mobile operating system.

Because on May 12, Beijing Intellectual Property Court rejected Huawei’s lawsuit against China’s National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) for rejecting its trademark application for HongmengOS, the Chinese name for the mobile operating system known globally as HarmonyOS.

HongMeng translates into Sino-Vietnamese as Hong Mong, which has a metaphorical meaning indicating the state of chaos before the creation of the universe (in Chinese creation mythology).

Huawei filed an application in May 2019 with CNIPA to register the HongmengOS text trademark. However, the application was rejected out of concern that it might confuse consumers, as two other companies – a Beijing-based cosmetics company and a software company based in Beijing. based in Hebei – registered this trademark in early 2010.

Huawei bất ngờ bị một hãng mỹ phẩm nẫng tay trên nhãn hiệu HongmengOS - Ảnh 1.

Richard Yu, head of Huawei’s consumer business group, announces the new HarmonyOS operating system at the Huawei Developers Conference in Guangdong, China, on August 9, 2019. Photo: Reuters

In the court filing, Huawei argued that the HongmengOS brand has “the support of the whole country” and enjoys “unshakable popularity”. The company also says that the name is associated with Huawei, while registered trademarks owned by other companies are not only unused, but also look visually distinct.

But the court did not accept this argument. They said that the evidence provided by Huawei was not sufficient to prove that the company had established a unique connection with the name Hongmeng.

Huawei did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The rejection creates another setback for Huawei, which is developing its own operating system to replace Google’s Android, amid easing US sanctions.

The Shenzhen-based telecommunications giant has invested tens of millions of dollars to develop HarmonyOS, the operating system announced in August 2019, about three months after the US announced restrictions barring the company from launching launch new products with pre-installed Google apps and services.

Huawei bất ngờ bị một hãng mỹ phẩm nẫng tay trên nhãn hiệu HongmengOS - Ảnh 2.

Banners with the Huawei logo are seen outside the venue where the Chinese telecom giant announced its HarmonyOS operating system, on August 9, 2019. Photo: AFP

The operating system is “not a clone of Android or iOS,” according to Wang Chenglu, head of Huawei’s software division, who said HarmonyOS is designed to link all Internet of Things (IoT) devices together. ) of the company.

Huawei’s first product to run on HarmonyOS was a smart TV released under the formerly low-cost brand Honor in 2019.

The company’s consumer business CEO, Richard Yu, said that the second generation of HarmonyOS will be available on Huawei smartphones, smart speakers and headphones in 2021. Also more devices such as glasses virtual reality will be added to the ecosystem after 2022.

Huawei also said it plans to roll out HarmonyOS on 400 million devices this year. And the company will hold its OS partner summit in Shanghai next week.

Refer to SCMP

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Source : Genk