A Russian businessman has been granted a trademark for ;-). Anyone using this emoticon will be sued!

Well, maybe it's not that bad but the BBc carried this story.

And he claims he may own :-), too.

And according to a friend of mine whose field is patents and trademarks law, it's pretty much a load of cobblers.

I agree. A complete load of old cobblers.

Actually I also liked the link on the Beeb page http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7780108.stm Clive James's commentary about nations' identities is, as is usual with his items, perceptive without being too cynical.

quote:

Originally posted by BobHale:
And according to a friend of mine whose field is patents and trademarks law, it's pretty much a load of cobblers.

Though my friend did also throw in this cautionary tale about a Frenchman who trademarked the yellow and black smiley button symbol, sent out a load of invoices, got paid by some of the more gullible and this act of paying turned it into a mark "used in trade" and validated the registration.

Besides agreeing that this is a load of you-know-what...the odd thing to me is that obviously these emoticons are used internationally, and yet these are national laws. Clearly it wouldn't meet the status of a patent in U.S. law.