2019 Emoji Law Year-in-Review

Some highlights from emoji law in 2019:

(Continued) Exponential Growth of Case References

I found 101 cases in 2019 that referenced “emoji” or “emoticon.” That nearly doubles the number from 2018, reinforcing that emoji law continues to grow exponentially. You can see the J curve in this chart:

Note 1: I indexed the term actually referenced in the opinion, even when it was clearly incorrect.

Note 2: a small number of cases referenced both emojis and emoticons. I counted these only in the emoji category.

As you can see, over 90% of the references in 2019 were to emojis as opposed to emoticons. Emoticon caselaw references peaked in 2016 and have declined since. Emoji caselaw references have basically doubled every year since 2015.

I have posted my full dataset of 271 caselaw references.

Most Interesting Cases of the Year

Other Tidbits

See last year’s year-in-review, the Nov. 2018 post “Everything You Wanted to Know About Emojis and the Law,” and my big paper on Emojis and the Law.