Yes, that thread title hooked me too. The creative way in which Dopers post obituaries, I thought it was about his departing this veil of tears.
Back in the day when they worked for another company, Siskel and Ebert lost the right to their star system when they switched to another company. Hence, the thumbs.
I’d use toes. They can’t stop them. I’m certain they can’t.
Except that “toes up” is already military slang for being dead, so it would be a tougher sell in a movie-review context.
Well, surely there’s another body part that can go up and down that the two men can use to signify whether they liked Kim Basinger in Nine 1/2 weeks.
But for the life of me I can’t think of what… 
What would be nice is if Richard Roeper stood up and said, “Well, this is Roger’s show. If he isn’t coming back, I’m outta here.” Richard got the gig in the first place because Gene Siskel died of brain cancer, and now having Ebert leave after having cancer surgery and then also losing his trademark would make me feel pretty uncomfortable continuing the show, at least as “Ebert and Roeper”.
Unless Ebert is holding out for a truly outrageous sum of money, it sounds like he’s being screwed over. It’d be nice if Roeper had his back.
Can’t they just say “liked it” or “disliked it,” or plus and minus? They can’t trademark the concept of a binary evaluation, and I’m suprised they can trademark “thumbs up” or “thumbs down.”
I wonder if Ebert is trying to get more money because he needs it for his medical treatment or to help him deal with his disabilities.
How do they make a veil out of tears? Or do you mean a vale?
They already use that particualr body part in Playboy, IIRC. 
“If you cut off their thumbs, some reviewers wouldn’t be able to do reviews,” critic Gene Shalit once said.
That’s right, Surbey, you can’t go around being snarky on SDMB without establishing your credentials first. Geez, Fiver, which is worse – unkind or unwarranted?
They’re both pretty bad. But Surbey elaborated, and I see he wasn’t actually wishing harm to Roger Ebert, which really seemed out of the blue even if one doesn’t like his opinions, so I apologize for my angry response.
Cite? I’ve been watching them since they started on PBS, and I remember the thumbs from the very beginning. I( can’t believe that star ratings are trademarked, since so many different companies use them. Some newspapers use other symbols to stand out.
Anyhow, maybe Nero actually owns the trademark on thumbs. 