My 12 year-old son Joseph received a phone yesterday – his
first. More specifically, I entrusted my iPhone to him and
purchased a new one for myself. This was a big deal at our
house.
Joseph immediately started creating a "customized
keyboard" on the phone that included emoticons as keyboard
keys. Never thought of it.
I have generally ignored emoticons, primarily because I use my
phone for work and secondarily because my eyes are not good enough
to distinguish between all of the variations of emoticon
expressions and I live in fear of sending what I thought was a
"thumbs-up" symbol, only to discover later that it was
something else.
I started thinking about emoticons and whether they could be
protected by intellectual property laws. My first thought was about
copyright law. I would say that some emoticons likely meet the
modicum of creativity required to warrant protection under U.S.
copyright laws, but again, my eyes are not good enough to determine
what
