Linux Solutions

An interesting story has emerged today regarding one Russian man’s attempt to lay claim to emoticons – a series of punctuation marks used to convey an emotion in a text message.

The Russian, entrepreneur Oleg Teterin claims that he was granted the trademark for the [;-)] emoticon by the Russian federal patent agency, however critics have been keen to point out that emoticons have been used in the public domain for many years now, putting a dampener on Teterin’s claim.

Mr Teterin says he will chase down any firms that are using the emoticon without his permission. He ranted on Russian television channel NTV, frothing at the mouth presumably, “I want to highlight that this is only directed at corporations, companies that are trying to make a profit without the permission of the trademark holder.”

Local newspaper Kommersant wrote that he said that companies could legally use the emoticon after “buying an annual licence from us,” referring to his company Superfone, who currently sell advertising on mobile phones, but he also says that it won’t cost too much, just “tens of thousands of dollars”.

Luckily for you and me, we won’t have to worry about using the symbols in our texts as he’s only targeting large companies. He claims that other similar symbols that resemble the one he has trademarked fall under his ownership meaning that there will be none of this [:-)] none of this [:)] and most certainly none of this [;)]

Most observers have seen through his mad-cap plan, believing that it is just a gimmick or publicity stunt. For example, in one of the best quotes I’ve ever heard, Nikita Sherman, president of Russian social networking site odnoklassniki.ru exclaimed: “You’re not likely to find any retards in Russia who’ll pay Superfone for the use of emoticons”.

Some company directors have laughed Teterin’s claims off, saying that they will not pay for emoticons on principle, like Vvmpelkom director Alexander Malis who suggested jokingly that he should patent brackets.

According to the media in Russia, Mr Teterin is not the first person to try to stake a claim on the symbols. Kommersant said that in 2005 a St Petersburg court upheld an appeal from German outfit Siemens, who were ‘under threat’ from an equally as insane Russian over the [;-)] symbol.

The world, it would seem, has gone mad after all.