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Trademarking :- - Is More Like ;- - Company Business and Marketing

Industry Standard, The, March 12, 2001 by Paul Mungo

It's called the "frowny," but the emoticon used in e-mail to signify sadness is now the symbol of absurdity.

Last year, Dallas-based Despair, purveyors of black-humor tchotchkes with demotivational slogans such as "Failure: When Your Best Just Isn't Good Enough," applied for the trademark for the frowny, aka :-(. Proving that there's nothing more absurd than government bureaucracy, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office actually granted it.

No one was more surprised by the decision than Despair, whose application had been a satirical protest of recent developments in intellectual property, in particular the patent given to Amazon for its "one-click" ordering system. Handed a golden opportunity, Despair COO E.L. Kersten ratcheted the satire up a notch and announced the company would sue anyone who uses the frowny in e-mail.

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With a sly wink -- or is that a ;-) -- Kersten also says Despair is using the FBI's Carnivore wiretap system to monitor e-mail and has compiled a list of 7 million violators so far. But two weeks ago, faced with what Despair called "international public outcry," the company announced a change of policy; from now on, frownies will be available for purchase on Despair.com (perhaps in time for April Fool's Day). The company warns, however, of a possible short supply: The only person at the firm who can produce frownies is the company proofreader, who, says Kersten, suffers from dyslexia. And that could lead to the worst nightmare for a company named Despair: a happy ending. :-)

With the high-tech explosion, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is hard-pressed to stay technologically savvy and review applications in a timely fashion. Still, it finds time to grant thousands of patents a year. Here are the 10 organizations granted the most patents in 2000.

1. IBM (2,886)

2. NEC (2,020)

3. Canon Kabushiki Kaisha (1,890)

4. Samsung Electronics (1,441)

5. Lucent Technologies (1,411)

6. Sony (1,385)

7. Micron Technology (1,304)

8. Toshiba (1,232)

9. Motorola (1,196)

10. Fujitsu (1,147)

PATENT TOTALS ARE PRELIMINARY.

SOURCE: USPTO

Trademarking :- - Is More Like ;- - Company Business and Marketing

Industry Standard, The, March 12, 2001 by Paul Mungo

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