MOSCOW — How much would you pay for a ;-)?
A Russian businessman has trademarked the emoticon — or combination of punctuation marks — used to convey a wink in text messages and e-mail.
Oleg Teterin, president of the mobile ad company Superfone, said Thursday he doesn’t plan on tracking down individual users following the decision by Russia’s patent agency.
“I want to highlight that this is only directed at corporations, companies that are trying to make a profit without the permission of the trademark holder,” he said in comments to NTV.
“Legal use will be possible after buying an annual license from us,” he was quoted by Kommersant as saying. “It won’t cost that much — tens of thousands of dollars.”
Other Russian Internet entrepreneurs reacted predictably. “Imagine the next wiseguy who trademarks the 33 letters of the Russian alphabet and then says anyone who uses the Russian alphabet has to send him money. It’s absurd,” Alexander Manis, director of a broadband Internet and mobile company, told NTV.
Maksim Mashkov, owner of an Internet cafe and bookstore, said he doubted the trademark’s legal basis since the symbol has existed in the public domain for years.
