A Russian company has ‘privatised’ the popular ‘smiley’, the smiling face symbol, popularly used by netizens to express their feelings and would now seek royalty for its commercial use.

Superfon, specialising in mobile phone advertising, has registered the smiley sign as its official trademark, Russian business daily Kommersant reported.

The move will allow the company to demand royalties for commercial use of the smiley. The Superfon company had a legal battle over the smiley copyright at the end of 2008.

Founder of ‘Superfon’ has claimed that he would charge royalties from companies like McDonalds and Nestle that use the sign in outdoor advertising as well as ICQ internet messenger.

However, common internet user need not worry about this as the company said that they would not be charged for putting up smiley in their messenger or web posts.

So, Keep ‘Smiley’ ing.