Don’t “;-)” at Me!

Don’t “;-)” at Me!

Author JoeDigital

A russian entrepreneur has announced that he has trademarked the “wink” emoticon, and claims to have been the first to put it into use. But if you like to wink a lot when you send texts or email, don’t fret. This generous genius of “net speak” allows that non-commercial use will still be allowed, free of charge or license. Well now, isn’t that just great!

Corporations who use this emoticon, which is perhaps one of the best known character “faces” used in internet dommunications, will have to pay a yearly licensing free of approximately $10,000. Well, it is pretty easy to see how he justifies calling himself an entrepreneur, but foresee a long and expensive battle to secure such a widely used symbol. This is especially true when you consider that one of the definitions of a trademark is a symbol, word, or phrase which is used to represent a company or idea.

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