Samsung and RIM sued over emoticon patent

Emoticons are useful for one thing only; to portray emotion through text, or to fool people by putting a 🙂 when you really feel :@. Emoticons are the one thing that gets texting or instant messaging close to the emotional connection level of a phone call or face to face communication. So why is something so widespread the centre of a lawsuit filed recently by Varia Holdings?

Varia Holdings claims they own a patent that could prevent companies from using software that displays “a list of emoticons for selection by the user.” As such they have filed a lawsuit against Samsung and Research In Motion but other companies including Skype (Microsoft) could soon be under attack. Varia Holdings even went as far to include a list of infringing devices which includes the Samsung Galaxy Nexus and the Blackberry Bold smartphones.

Kitguru says: Another questionable patent at the centre of a lawsuit; I didn't see this one coming at all.

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