Techdirt. Stories filed under "emoticons" Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us Techdirt. Stories filed under "emoticons"http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Mon, 19 Mar 2012 11:39:20 PDT :-( Samsung, Research In Motion Sued For Making It Easy To Use Emoticons Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/blog/wireless/articles/20120316/15200318145/samsung-research-motion-sued-making-it-easy-to-use-emoticons.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/blog/wireless/articles/20120316/15200318145/samsung-research-motion-sued-making-it-easy-to-use-emoticons.shtml trademarked :-( and announced that they planned to sue 7 million internet users for violating the trademark. The actual announcement was pretty funny -- even though not everyone got the joke. In 2006, we also had a story that mentioned a whole bunch of patents and patent applications related to emoticons.

It appears that one of those is now being used in a lawsuit against Samsung and RIM for having the gall to create a button that makes it easy to pick an emoticon without typing it in. The patent in question (US Patent 7,167,731) really is for having a button that lets you pick emoticons. How this is possibly patentable is beyond me. But, for some reason, examiner Lee Nguyen thought it was somehow non-obvious. The patent was originally assigned to Wildseed, a mobile accessories firm that AOL bought in 2005. The patent itself then went to Varia Mobil, who moved it to Varia Holdings to Varia and back to Varia Holdings. It's Varia Holdings bringing the lawsuit. Varia appears to just be a trolling operation (of course).

It's fairly stunning that anyone considered this a valid patent at any point. That it's now being used as the basis for a lawsuit should (once again) raise significant questions about the USPTO's approval process for patents.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
]]> thus,-infringing-a-patent http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20120316/15200318145 Mon, 15 Mar 2010 08:33:00 PDT Judges Interpreting Emoticons? :-( Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100308/1838158464.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100308/1838158464.shtml ruling in the Lenz vs. Universal lawsuit concerning a bogus DMCA takedown and whether or not damages could be awarded, there was one bit of the ruling which Eugene Volokh recently highlighted, which seems worth mentioning, if only for the amusement factor. Apparently, part of determining whether or not there was actual harm done to Lenz was looking at some email communications, including one where a friend used an emoticon:
Universal ... argues [as a defense to Lenz's lawsuit] that there are triable issues of fact as to whether Lenz has "prosecuted in good faith the assertion that she has been damaged" by Universal's alleged violation of [the DMCA]. This argument is based on four separate contentions.... [The fourth is] that an email exchange between Lenz and one of her friends shows that Lenz does not believe that she was injured substantially and irreparably by the takedown notice. In the exchange, Lenz responds to her friend's comment that the friend "love[s] how [Lenz has] been injured 'substantially and irreparably' ;-)" by writing "I have ;-)." The (";-)") symbol, according to Lenz, is a "winky" emoticon which signifies something along the lines of "just kidding."

At her deposition, Lenz testified that she believed her friend's use of the emoticon "was kind of a reference back to [the] lawyerese" of the "substantially and irreparbly harmed" language and that her use of the emoticon was "a reply to the wink that [her friend] used." Lenz maintains that the fact that she "believes that lawyers sometimes use stilted language is not evidence of bad faith." ...
While it's fascinating to see Universal using a friend's use of an emoticon to try to prove its point, it does seem like things could get a bit dicey when we have judges trying to interpret things like emoticons.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
]]> ^_^ http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20100308/1838158464 Fri, 12 Dec 2008 07:31:00 PST ;-) Available For Yearly License Fee Thanks To Russian Trademark Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20081211/1812303094.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20081211/1812303094.shtml Despair Inc., makers of the world's greatest calendar (I've got a bunch) trademarked the emoticon :-( and jokingly threatened to sue pretty much everyone. Some folks in the press thought they were serious, and it got into the news. It looks like someone over in Russia is trying to do the same thing... but it's not clear if he's joking. Oleg Teterin, president of some mobile advertising company, not only has received the trademark, but says that any business using it, or any similar emoticon, now needs to pay a license fee: "Legal use will be possible after buying an annual licence from us. It won't cost that much - tens of thousands of dollars." He does make clear that he's only talking about businesses using the emoticon, not consumers, but even then some people wonder if this is just a big publicity stunt. Either way, it speaks volumes about the competency of the Russian trademark agency to consider an emoticon that's already in such widespread common usage (and has been for decades) available for trademark protection.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
]]> so-sue-me-;-) http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20081211/1812303094