A series of punctuation marks used to convey a wink in text messages – known as an emoticon – has been trademarked in Russia, says a local businessman.
– BBC News
A businessman from Russia has apparently succeeded in trademarking the winking smiley (or emoticon), 
. Oleg Teterin says he won’t go after individual users for infringing on his trademark (so I won’t get sued for writing this post), but plans on extorting a yearly license fee from businesses and organizations using the smiley.
This is nothing more than a publicity stunt – no trademark office in the world would entertain such a stupid claim, at least I’d like to think so! The emoticon has been in public use for years! The first smiley was (apparently) introduced back in 1984. Even if he does pursue this claim with actual legal action against a business, any judge in their right mind would (or rather, should!) throw it out in the blink of an eye. I shouldn’t even be paying attention to this Teterin guy because he’s getting exactly what he wants — publicity! Ignore him.
