Huawei Technologies has asked Peruvian authorities to trademark its “Hongmeng” operating system, in another indication that the company could be close to use an Android alternative for its smartphones.

Peru’s anti-trust agency Indecopi said Huawei filed the trademark request on May 27, days after the United States put Huawei on a blacklist that barred it from business with global tech companies such as Google, whose Android operating system is used in Huawei phones.

Richard Yu, the CEO of Huawei’s consumer division, has confirmed that Huawei has been developing an operating system many months now.

Representatives for Huawei declined to provide a comment.

Huawei has also filed several applications with the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) for trademarks for the OS and other software. At home, Huawei applied for a Hongmeng trademark in August last year and received a nod last month, according to a filing on China’s intellectual property administration’s website.

Its applications to trademark the OS show Huawei wants to use “Hongmeng” for gadgets ranging from smartphones, portable computers to robots and car televisions.

Previous reports claimed that Huawei was testing its own operating system for the China (Hongmeng) and the international markets (Ark OS), with plans to be launched in the third quarter of 2019.

Smartphone vendors such as OPPO and VIVO have also sent teams to test Huawei's new operation system, which has been reported by Chinese media t obe significantly faster than the Android system.

Financial Times reported that Google warned that if the US administration moves ahead with its sweeping ban on Huawei, it risks compromising national security. Google is concerned it would not be allowed to update its Android operating system on Huawei smartphones, and would prompt Huawei to develop its own version of the software.