[funsec] Serious news for intellectual property ;-)

[Rob, grandpa of Ryan, Trevor, Devon & Hannah]

Russian hopes to cash in on ;-)

A Russian businessman trademarks the emoticon, a combination of punctuation
marks used to convey a wink in text messages. 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/-/2/hi/europe/7778767.stm

Amusing, but also points out the differences between patent (local versus global, 
time limited versus open-ended), copyright (expression versus idea) and trademark.

(Maybe VANOC would like to hire him ...)

======================  (quote inserted randomly by Pegasus Mailer)
rslade at vcn.bc.ca     slade at victoria.tc.ca     rslade at computercrime.org
It was much better to imagine men in some smoky room somewhere,
made mad and cynical by privilege and power, plotting over the
brandy.  You had to cling to this sort of image, because if you
didn't then you might have to face the fact that bad things
happened because ordinary people, the kind who brushed the dog
and told their children bedtime stories, were capable of then
going out and doing terrible things to other ordinary people.
                                          - `Jingo,' Terry Pratchett
victoria.tc.ca/techrev/rms.htm blogs.securiteam.com/index.php/archives/author/p1/