Microsoft patents emoticons, copyrights ROTFL
Okay, so I'm just kidding about that second part. But the first statement is legit. According to a filing with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, Microsoft has been granted a patent for "methods and devices for creating and transferring custom emoticons to allow a user to adopt an arbitrary image as an emoticon, which can then be represented by a character sequence in real-time communication." What this sounds like is a patent for the common practice of allowing users to type an emoticon key sequence — like :) — into an IM client and have it automatically replaced by a graphic. No word on whether Microsoft plans to go after anyone for this, but to play it safe, you may want to keep your smileys as text — or just stop using them altogether; the whole idea is kind of tired anyhow, and seeing it patented by Microsoft sort of takes all the fun out of it. :(
[Via The Raw Feed]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
David Chartier said 10:23AM on 7-25-2005
Sorry if there's any big M$ zealots here, but.... this is just plain pathetic. Purely, fundamentally, ridiculously and sorrow-inducingly pathetic.
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Jonathan said 1:22PM on 7-25-2005
I personally like these =)
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Adora said 12:33PM on 7-25-2005
Not quite.
The patent is for sending CUSTOM emoticons, ie. sending whatever custom graphic you have assigned in a second p2p-style transmission, which is stored in the receiver's temporary internet files. Not just assigning :) to a picture.
:: Lisa
:: adora [at] techslut [.] net
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dj Robo. Scratching the turntable back and forth. He never gets tired. It's pretty groovy. said 1:01PM on 7-25-2005
dj Robo. Scratching the turntable back and forth. He never gets tired. It's pretty groovy.
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Marc Perton said 1:28PM on 9-30-2005
Even if that's the case, there's plenty of prior art. Right now, I'm using Fire on the Mac, which allows you to create your own "Smiley Themes." This just doesn't seem that unique.
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Steve MAxfield said 1:55PM on 7-25-2005
Microsoft keeps getting worse and worse... they started to get worse even faster, after i switched to the mac side, or so it just seems like it. I hate microsoft. I HATE ...
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Adora said 1:52PM on 7-25-2005
So if I design and use my own Fire emoticon theme using images of my cat, then send a message containing said emoticons to %internet.stranger, will he see my cat?
:: Lisa
:: adora [at] techslut [.] net
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