Huawei has filed a trademark request with the EUIPO (European Union Intellectual Property Office) for the names Huawei Ark OS, Huawei Ark, Ark and Ark OS. 

The requests were only made recently - on 24 May - which comes quite soon after Google, ARM and other companies had officially ended their partnership with the smartphone manufacturer. 

The trademark request is currently under examination, meaning it hasn't been approved yet by the European board, but, it would indicate that Huawei is, indeed, making plans to survive without Android in the EU. 

Huawei confirmed at the back end of 2018 that it has been working on a backup to its Android/Play Services based software experience for some time.

Huawei would rather not give up on the benefits of a fully-fledged Android phone, but at the same time, with the US trade blacklist being on the cards for some time, it had to work on its own solution to prepare for the worst. 

It is worth noting, however, that only the name Ark OS (and variants of) have been applied for. There are no details as to what this is, or what device it runs on.

There's the possibility that this could be a new category of device, but - given the timing - it seems likely Huawei is getting ready for the move way from Android in western markets, and getting its desired branding in place. 

Outside of Europe, the suggestion has been that Huawei is preparing to call its operating system either Kirin OS (to match its processor names) or HongMeng OS.

With the latter being a Chinese name, one can understand the desire to use a more anglicised name in Europe. 

It's not only on the software side Huawei has had to prepare for the fallout with several trade partners. It even got kicked out of the SD Association's approval list, so it can't make use of industry standard microSD or SD cards, which brings the announcement of its new Nano Memory (NM) cards into a new light. 

We're yet to find out if this is all fallout from the US simply posturing to get a better trade deal with China, or of genuine security concerns exist within Huawei. Which ever way, it's likely to get messier before we see improvement.