US mobile phone operator Cingular Wireless has lodged a application to patent emoticons on cell phones.

According to Cellular News :

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 :) via an SMS – if selected via a dedicated or softkey, would be a breach of the patent in future.

There is a division of opinion on news sites about whether the application is pending or has been granted.

I presume sending emoticons in emails remains patent-free. For the moment.

See further:
Engadget
Consumeraffairs.com

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Tags: cell phones, Cingular Wireless, email, emoticon, mobile phones, patent, SMS

This entry was posted on Friday, 27th January, 2006 at 1:10 pm and is filed under Email in general. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.