Another bonkers US patent application

In (yet) another attempt to patent the blatantly obvious, not to mention something invented by other people and in common use for well over a decade, US company Cingular has applied to patent smilies (also known as emoticons), reports The Register. You know, those combinations of punctuation that we use to try and convey emotion in online text. And lest we think that they’re extending the list somehow, it explicitly includes many of the most common smilies, like :- ) 8- ( and :- P

Is the US Patent Office mad enough to allow this? Let’s hope not. But what does it say about the US patent system that Cingular even thought it worth their time and money to apply for this patent?

Update
Apparently, it’s not quite as mad as that – The Register is now reporting that the patent isn’t attempting to claim the smilies themselves, only a method to use a key on the phone to insert them quickly into messages. So, we can breathe a little easier :-)

pax et bonum

Article posted at 1:50pm on 27 January 2006
Category: Computers, Politics, Struggling, General

Check patent law. Is the invention unique and non-obvious? Does it work? Then it’s patentable. Why wouldn’t it be?

Ed Darrell ()
06:50am on 29 January 2006

Ed,
As you’ll see from the above update, the patent isn’t quite what was initially reported – it’s not about smilies themselves but about a method to insert them into phone messages. So, not as bonkers as it seemed.

But you miss a main point of what I was saying: smilies aren’t non-obvious! They are pre-existing art. And the USPTO has a dreadful record at granting patents (especially in IT-related fields) for which there is substantial prior art. In an era when we’ve seen patents on fire and the wheel (yes, really), we have to ask whether the patent system is working as intended. Patents aren’t a right. They are a contract between society and the individual in which society sacrifices something (by granting a temporary monopoly) in order to gain something (protection for useful inventions). If the deal becomes unbalanced (if, for example, society starts losing far more than it gains) then it is quite reasonable to ask whether the contract needs attention.

pax et bonum

[John] () (URL)
5:47pm on 29 January 2006