Cingular Patenting the Emoticon :(

[Red Squirrel]

Rediculous or what, wonder if this will pass... if it does, I'm sure as hell not removing the emoticons on the forum, nor will I stop using them. Being sued for such an act would make the company look really stupid in court, too.

http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15792.php

The USA based mobile operator, Cingular Wireless has managed to get a patent on the concept of using emoticon on mobile phones. While the aim of the patent is to enable the displaying of MSN style graphics on handsets, they also managed to patent the delivery of text based emoticon - so presumably sending Smile via an SMS - if selected via a dedicated or softkey, would be a breach of the patent in future.

The method and system described in the patent allows a user of a mobile phone (or other device) to select a displayable icon, such as an emoticon, that indicates the mood or emotion of the user or conveys other information independent of text. In some embodiments, the selected displayable icon is inserted into a text message or screen, such as an instant message, chat screen, or user text field.

The system may also support the import of emoticons and custom emoticons to one or more applications running on the mobile device. For example, in some embodiments, users may visit an out-of-band service (e.g., web page) to compose or upload custom emoticons that would then become available on the wireless device's palette.

Update
It has been pointed out to us that this is a patent application at the moment - the patent has not yet been formally granted.

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:4136, old post ID:33803

[Death]

people . I hate people that try to patent something that's already widely available. Microsoft tried that with something too I believe. Can't remember what it was though.

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:4136, old post ID:33809

[Red Squirrel]

Yeah think it was something similar, either way, software related patents are very silly and should be banned, patents should be restricted to things you can actually touch, like if someone gets a perpetual motion device actually working.

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:4136, old post ID:33810

[Pyr-O-Rgasm]

God people suck. They are so stupid. You don't patent effin' software related stuff........

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:4136, old post ID:33812

[sintekk]

They can't patent emoticons, there is prior art (owned by Despair, Inc)
Patent info here



Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:4136, old post ID:33813