Microsoft tries to steal trademark from Google in one ‘Blink’

Ron

Blink

A week after Google announced a new rendering engine called Blink, Microsoft has reportedly rushed to trademark the term ‘Blink’ to make it their own.

On April 3rd, Google announced a new rendering engine, called Blink, which will soon be used for Google Chrome. Blink is an old open-source WebKit browser engine that was started by Apple and was released in 2005. On April 9th, Microsoft applied for the trademark of the name ‘Blink’, adding fuel to the raging inferno between Google and Microsoft. But one may wonder: Why would Microsoft go through such lengths to trademark it?

Microsoft actually wrote a Windows Phone 8 application called BLINK, which has nothing to do with the internet or WebKits. BLINK (by Microsoft) takes pictures as if it were like a “blinking eye” and continues to take pictures; as well as removing “camera shake” because of the addition of Microsoft’s stabilization technology. Microsoft, technically had Blink first, and “regularly files trademark applications for new products and services.” It could be just a coincidence, because it only has been less than a week since the announcement, and Microsoft could have been planning this patent for a while, but the only reason that it’s odd is because this “doesn’t typically file for trademarks for Microsoft Research projects unless they ‘graduate’ and become full-fledged offerings,” which typically does not really happen.

Blink

According to a chart showing a list of all of the recent Microsoft Research Projects, Google has not named any of them similar to the ones Microsoft made; therefore those ones are not trademarked, however, Blink was developed by Google with a similar name and has been the only one (so far) that has Microsoft up and patenting the name. The trademark “may have been triggered by Google’s announcement, but primarily to protect the name of an upcoming product” due to the fact that it might be joining the Windows Phone platform quite soon.

Begin flame war of who has rights to the name Blink in 3..2…1…