Do you like inserting winking emoticons in your emails?
If you do, then be prepared to pay ten thousand dollars because Oleg Teterin is asking for license fees. Yes, a businessman from Russia is actually asking you to pay up every time you include the winking emoticon not only in your email messages but also in your text messages.
Patenting winking emoticons
Teterin, who is the current president of the Superfone mobile ad company, is claiming that the Rospatent federal agency of Russia recently granted him the trademark for the winking emoticon. The winking emoticon is composed of three punctuation marks: a semi-colon, a dash, and a closing parenthesis. When viewed sideways, it really does depict a winking smiley face.
Charging license fees
Teterin is serious about owning the trademark of the winking emoticon. In fact, he even revealed that all companies will be sent legal warnings in case they use the winking emoticon without asking for his permission first. “Legal use will be possible after buying an annual license from us,” he said. The reported amount that Teterin is going to charge for the license fees of the winking emoticon goes for around tens of thousands of dollars.
If you are an avid user of the winking emoticon, then you don’t have anything to worry about. The license fees for the winking emoticon is only directed at firms and companies. “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 revealed during an interview that was shown on the Russian television channel NTV.
Trademarking other emoticons
The Russian businessman’s sudden interest in trademarking emoticons, however, doesn’t end with the winking smiley face or its dash-less version: 
. In fact, Teterin is actually planning on getting the trademarks for two smiling emoticons: 
and .