As was reported a few weeks ago, Google is ditching WebKit in their Chrome browser for an all new rendering engine called "Blink". However, Microsoft has been a tad sneaky at the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), filing a trademark for "Blink" just six days after Google announced their intentions to call their rendering engine Blink, likely to protect their existing property.
This is Microsoft's Blink app for Windows Phone 8
The trademark is said to cover "computer software for controlling a digital camera and for selecting, saving and sharing digital photographs", which refers to Microsoft Research's Blink app for Windows Phone 8. The app enables you to burst capture images before and after the shutter button is pressed on your WP8 smartphone, allowing you to then choose the best shot afterwards.
While the app has been out on the Store for some time, it's interesting to see Microsoft trademarking the term just days after Google's announcement. As The Next Web notes, though, Microsoft has never filed a trademark for any of their Microsoft Research projects before Blink, as often these projects never end up seeing a fully-fledged release. So either Microsoft is purposefully annoying Google by swiping the trademark from under their noses, or they potentially have bigger plans for Blink and are trying to protect its name.
As Microsoft wouldn't usually trademark a Research project unless they had plans for it, the latter situation seems more likely. Is a better baking-in of the software coming in a future version of Windows Phone?
Editor's Note: The article has been updated to accurately reflect the timeline of Microsoft and Google's Blinks.
Source: The Next Web
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