The Black woman said to be behind Apple’s diverse emoji symbols is suing the company for ripping off her idea.
Katrina Parrott is suing the company for copyright infringement. She says that in 2013, she was invited to Cupertino to discuss a possible partnership with Apple on an app based on her concept of emojis with different skin colors. Back then, emojis were only depicted in the standard yellow skin tone. However, nothing seemed to come from the meeting. Instead, Apple moved forward with developing its own collection of diverse symbols.
Parrott was motivated by her daughter, who felt that she could not express herself via emoji because none of them matched her skin tone. From this conversation, Parrott launched iDiversicons six months later. The program allowed users to copy and paste emojis with five different skin tones into their text messages and other apps.
Parrott says Apple and other major tech companies almost immediately begin ripping off her creation and incorporating different colored emojis into their operating systems. This cost the creator $200,000.
Todd Patterson, the Texas intellectual property lawyer representing Parrott, said the case highlights an inventor being ripped off while trying to bring inclusion to the tech world.
“The woman who was trying to improve inclusion gets excluded,” he stated.
Apple has fired back at Parrott, stating that “copyright does not protect the idea of applying five different skin tones to emoji because ideas are not copyrightable.” The company claims that the idea for their diverse emoji skin tones was its own and that they did not steal from Parrott.
Parrott is seeking unspecified damages from the company.
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