Research in Motion has filed an official opposing action against Apple's trademark filing for "WebKit" in Canada. The opposing action which was filed earlier this month has been granted an extension of time. Many industry players will be very interested in the outcome of this decsision which could be issued in early 2012.
Apple's WebKit is a layout engine designed to allow web browsers to render web pages. WebKit powers Google Chrome and Safari and is also used as the basis for the experimental browser included with the Amazon Kindle ebook reader and other projects including WebOS. WebKit was originally derived by Apple Inc. from the Konqueror browser's KHTML software library for use as the engine of Safari web browser, and has now been further developed by individuals from the KDE project, Apple Inc., Nokia, Google, Bitstream, Torch Mobile, Samsung and others.
Apple open-sourced Webkit in 2005 and made that announcement during their World Wide Developer Conference. But something went wrong at the junction and at one point KHTML developers said they were unlikely to accept Apple's changes and claimed the relationship between the two groups was a "bitter failure." This is why this out-of-nowhere letter of opposition by Research in Motion (RIM) to the Canadian IP Office, as indicated in-part below, is most interesting.
Research in Motion has been granted until November 22, 2011 to produce their official opposition details. Until the contents of RIM's opposition are officially made public, we're a little in the dark. With that said, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if details of their complaint and opposition to Apple's WebKit trademark application eventually leak out by parties interested in seeing Apple's trademark application go down in flames. Time will tell.
Notice: Patently Apple presents a basic summary of new trademark filings with their associated graphics for journalistic news purposes as each such trademark is revealed by the U.S. and/or other foreign Patent & Trademark Offices. This category covers a few Industrial Design reports each year while others could be found in our granted patent archives. Readers are cautioned that the full text of any trademark application should be read in its entirety for further details.
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