This makes me really >:(

Regular visitors to DNA will I'm sure be familiar with my issues over trademarking of symbols and everyday language.

Now a Russian entrepreneur has gone and trademarked an emoticon.

Not just any old emoticon mind you. My favourite one.

Honestly how on earth can someone lay claim to the ownership of a combination of a semi-colon, hyphen and a bracket?

It's totally insane.

What next? Someone trademarking individual letters of the alphabet?