Microsoft Deems Emotiflags Patent-Worthy

theodp writes "Microsoft said you could count on them to improve patent quality. For an example of how they're raising the bar on innovation, check out this just-published patent application for Emotiflags, which Microsoft explains solves the problem of indicating an emotion associated with an email message. At the risk of infringing on the patent, this one Makes Me Mad!"

Comments

Re:Prior art at Google Groups....

[oohshiny]

They're patenting something that involves the association of emoticons with iconic images, also involving mechanisms like X-Face. It's still not new, it's still not their idea, it still shouldn't get granted, but if you're going to cite prior art, cite the right one.