;-) Available For Yearly License Fee Thanks To Russian Trademark

from the so-sue-me-;-) dept

Fri, Dec 12th 2008 7:31am — Mike Masnick

Way back in 2001, 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.

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Filed Under: emoticons, russia, trademark

20 Comments

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Jeffry Houser (profile), 12 Dec 2008 @ 8:36am

I'm confused...
First off, did he receive a patent or a trademark? You use both words in the article.

Let's assume that we all agree that trademarks laws exist to protect the consumer from getting confused.

If a company has a unique use of a common symbol for commercial purposes; it seems to me it would not be far fetched to get that use trademarked.

I'm not sure about Russian trademark law, however I wonder what exactly is this guys use of the trademark?
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TDR, 12 Dec 2008 @ 8:38am

Just gotta say one thing:

;-)
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eleete, 12 Dec 2008 @ 8:45am

Re: I'm confused...
Despair Inc. Trademarked :-( Russian guy patented ;-).
Clear now ?
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Erik, 12 Dec 2008 @ 8:47am

The sad thing is that some companies will probably pony up to pay him. Not a bad scam, it is, at least, kind of funny. But its still a scam.
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Vic, 12 Dec 2008 @ 8:57am

Oh yeah, I've seen a report on Russian TV yesterday. The guy seemed dead serious. (In the same report they mentioned that the smiley as we know it now was actually first drawn in 1982.) But does not look like anybody took it seriously. One of the suggestions was to trademark the period sign - much more profitable! ;-)
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billy, 12 Dec 2008 @ 9:02am

;-)

i don't think anyone outside of Russia would be too concerned about this, even if the guy were serious.
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some random guy, 12 Dec 2008 @ 9:33am

Re:
>the smiley as we know it now was actually first drawn in 1982.)

yes. the smiley was invented by Scott Fahlman at CMU. http://www.cs.cmu.edu/smiley/
Maybe he should get in on the action ;-)
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Dec 2008 @ 9:37am

What about if we...
go like this instead (-; ???
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Dec 2008 @ 9:51am

Re: What about if we...
Sorry, I have a patent pending on the processing of reversing an emoticon to by-pass emoticon patents. ;)
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Jeffry Houser (profile), 12 Dec 2008 @ 9:53am

Re: Re: I'm confused...
According to other news reports I've seen--including the link in this post; the Russian guy trademarked.

I suspect this is just a typo in the techdirt article.
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Mike (profile), 12 Dec 2008 @ 9:57am

Re: I'm confused...
First off, did he receive a patent or a trademark? You use both words in the article.

I messed up. It was trademark. Don't know how that happened.
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mslade, 12 Dec 2008 @ 10:32am

Re: Re: What about if we...
Erm, I have a patent pending on pending patents. You will be hearing from my lawyer soon.

And before it gets said, I am also holding a patent on taking recursive jokes too far, so if anyone continues this thread you will also be hearing from my lawyer.
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Bill Phillip, 12 Dec 2008 @ 11:47am

Everyone should send him an email with an emoticon expressing how they feel about this.
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Bill Phillip, 12 Dec 2008 @ 12:14pm

Re: :-)
oleg.teterin@superfone.ru
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PaulT (profile), 12 Dec 2008 @ 12:21pm

Yeah, good luck with that. As ever this raises the question - just who exactly are the morons who pass this kind of thing? Surely something like this is obviously both invalid and designed to provide a method for extortion? Doesn't the insanely well-documented prior use of the symbols get considered?

I do like the way that's it's difficult for a mainstream media outlet to report on this without typing ;-)... Can they sue the BBC for reporting on their trademark, I wonder?
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Dec 2008 @ 8:52pm

Re:
Can Coca-Cola sue NBC if they put up a graphic of the Coca-Cola symbol while reporting on something having to do with Coca-Cola? No. So I don't see why the news media couldn't print a ;-) if they wanted to.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Dec 2008 @ 12:12pm

I wonder if the secret trade negotiations include addressing silliness like this and how to handle it.
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Anonymous Coward, 14 Dec 2008 @ 3:10pm

Haha
OK - check's in the mail.
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Bill Phillip, 16 Dec 2008 @ 7:49am

Re: Re: :-)
He replied to my email asking, "Who are you?"
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Peter E Retep, 7 Jan 2009 @ 12:35pm

smiley emoticon origination
Mike Jittlov, of Mickey Mouse Anniversary shorts fame, and the genius behind the Wizard of Speed and Time, claimed many times to have invented and published the smiley face icon before this in his high school newspaper in L.A.
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