http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/11/oleg-teterin-russian-entr_n_150438.html

This is a humorous story I found about a Oleg Teterin, president of the mobile ad company Superfone who just registered the trademark for the emoticon, ;-). He said that he won't go after individual users (email or messages), but this is more aimed at companies that want to use the symbol in advertisements or anything that involves making a profit off of the trademarked symbol. However, there are those that say that Teterin was not the first to try to trademark the symbol. And a man who comments in the story, is a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, and says that he was the first to use the symbol in an computer message 25 years ago.

I think attempting to trademark this symbol is ridiculous. This symbol has been around for years and there are far too many people using this regularly. And because he trademarked that particular emoticon, he also says that any similar ones are also covered. I am also not sure of what type of company that is professional would try to use this emoticon to profit from...