Someone trademarked a popular WeChat emoji and netizens are mad

They’re also laughing at Tencent being ripped off for a change

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Last month, the facepalm emoji trademark was approved to a Jin Zhaoping, who has nothing to do with Tencent. (Picture: Trademark Office of the State Administration for Industry & Commerce of the People’s Republic of China)

Published: 8:00pm, 14 Sep 2018Updated: 8:39am, 20 Sep 2019

This article originally appeared on ABACUS

People in China discovered that one of the country’s favorite WeChat emojis just got registered as a trademark… but it wasn’t by WeChat’s maker, Tencent.

The trademark for the facepalm emoji is now held by a person in a Zhejiang county, who filed it for use on clothing, a Chongqing newspaper reported. That story is one of the most popular on Weibo today.

Users are blasting the person who registered the emoji: “This is a typical trademark squatter,” one of the most like user comments said. “They have no respect for originality.”

While defending Tencent, a lot of people also find the situation quite ironic because Tencent itself is not known for its originality: Lots of Tencent games are, uh, “inspired” by others.

Even though this isn’t quite the same thing, and two wrongs don’t make a right, people are taking this chance to make fun of the company. Some are saying that now Tencent knows what it’s like to have their copyright violated.