ZDNet UK reports that Microsoft has filed a patent in the US, covering the creation of custom emoticons, first implemented in MSN Messenger 6 and widely used in MSN Messenger 7.

The patent application, which was published by the US Patent Office on Thursday, covers selecting pixels to create an emoticon image, assigning a character sequence to these pixels and reconstructing the emoticon after transmission within the MSN Messenger software.

Mark Taylor, the executive director of the Open Source Consortium, has said that the patent could be particularly problematic as it covers basic human communication. "Emoticons are a form of language, and a precedent allowing patenting of language constructs is very dangerous indeed," said Taylor.

To the average MSN Messenger user all of this doesnt mean much and probably won't affect your use of Emoticons in MSN Messenger, but such a patent could be used by Microsoft to prevent competitors (such as Yahoo Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger and even Skype) from developing applications that compete with its MSN Messenger application.

The patent application was filed on the 20th of January 2004 and published by the US Patent and Trademark office on Thursday, July 21, 2005. You can read the complete MSN Messenger Emoticon patent application Here.