Business Insider reports that the United States Patent and Trademark Office granted Snap a new patent on August 28 titled: “Determining the mood for a group.” It was originally filed in April 2015.

In summary:

 

 

• Snap has patented a way to monitor precisely how people are feeling at events like gigs, festivals, sports, or speeches.
• The technology uses facial recognition on Snapchat selfies and takes cues from messages to score how happy, sad, or terrified people are feeling.
• Snap outlined how the technology could help event promoters determine the “aggregate mood” of a crowd attending an event.
• Just because Snap has patented the technology doesn’t mean the company will actually use it.

Commercialization thoughts: Could Snap charge event organizers a fee for monitoring audience mood and how the crowd is really feeling in real time? See sketches from the patent filing application below, read more here.