Cingular Patents the Emoticon :(
Jan 26th, 2006 | by Neil Barton | Posted in technology | Comments Off
To be honest, I’ve never been a huge fan of the emoticon. When harmless they are cute, when used at the end of a rude comment like “just kidding!” they seem hostile. But for the most part, they are a part of Internet culture ever since email began zinging around. Today, if you can believe it, I found out that Cingular is going to patent the emoticon. As far-fetched as that sound, in this era of Amazon owning “the one-click” and RIM battling for the ability to send Blackberry email, patent law is scary and not even close to overheating. The patent number is US2006015812 if you want to look it up.
We say:
Why stop there? Why not patent BTW and ROTFL and RTFM?
