Open Source, patent reform folks not pleased...
Microsoft has apparently tried to patent the idea of custom emoticons, according to ZDNet & Slashdot (see the patent). ""We now appear to be living in a world where even the most laughable paranoid fantasies about commercially controlling simple social concepts are being outdone in the real world by well-funded armies of lawyers on behalf of some of the most powerful companies on the planet," says Mark Taylor of the Open Source Consortium.