It's been tried by Microsoft, and now Cingular wants to try its hand at patenting emoticons in some form. Experts say Cingular wants to patent only the use of a single cell phone key to send a smiley, but the blogosphere response is fairly predictable: a hearty >:-(.
Cingular attempts to patent smileys
Cingular attempts to patent smileys
Molly Wood
Former Executive Editor
Molly Wood was an executive editor at CNET, author of the Molly Rants blog, and host of the tech show, Always On. When she's not enraging fanboys of all stripes, she can be found offering tech opinions on CBS and elsewhere, and offering opinions on everything else to anyone who will listen.