I think and hope so too.

Btw who is responsible in the US for deciding whether a patent is granted or not?

The decision is up to a patent examiner at the USPTO. In theory they are supposed to research the origins of a patent to determine if there is any "prior art" that would make the idea obvious. A patent is supposed to be issued only if the idea is non-obvious. Given the length of time emoticons have been around, I can't see how MS could patent any manipulation of them. People have been moving emoticons back and forth between graphics and text for a long time, and that contsitutes prior art.

However, in reality, patent examiners are horribly overworked (largely due to frivolous crap like this) and will sometimes issue or reject patents based on very, very incomplete research. The end result is that patenting things has become way too much of a gambling game. Since it costs almost nothing to play and the rewards are potentially huge, companies will keep on swamping the PTO and hope that they can use the patents to extort their way to fame and riches.

"All our base are belong to them..."

apparently.

patent something that was done by someone that started as a fad, Digital forms of emoticons on the Internet were included in a proposal by Scott Fahlman of Carnegie Mellon University in a message on 19 September 1982.then how the heck could Microsoft or anyone patent it ?

By the fact, The use of emoticons can be traced back to the 19th century, and they were commonly used in casual and/or humorous writing.