| Intellectual property law |
|---|
| Primary rights |
| Copyright · authors' rights · related rights · moral rights · patent · utility model · trademark · geographical indication · trade secret |
| Sui generis rights |
| Database right · indigenous intellectual property · industrial design right · mask work · plant breeders' rights · supplementary protection certificate |
| Related topics |
| Societal views · orphan works · public domain · more |
Typefaces, fonts and characters raise intellectual property considerations in copyright, trademark and design patent law. The copyright status of typefaces varies between jurisdictions. In the United States, typefaces, as such, are excluded from copyright protection, however they may still generate pertinent intellectual property considerations, such as design patents and copyrights on computer programs that generate scalable font files.
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Under U.S. law, typefaces and the characters they contain are considered to be utilitarian objects whose utility outweighs any merit that may exist in protecting their creative elements. As such, typefaces are exempt from copyright protection in the United States (Code of Federal Regulations, Ch 37, Sec. 202.1(e); Eltra Corp. vs. Ringer). However, this finding was limited in Adobe Systems, Inc. v. Southern Software, Inc., wherein it was held that scalable computer fonts, ie., the instructions necessary to render a typeface, constitute a "computer program" for the purposes of copyright law and hence are subject to protection. Hence the computer file(s) associated with a scalable font will generally be protected even though the specific design of the characters is not. Furthermore, a rasterized representation (e.g. bitmap) of the characters in a scalable font is not protected by copyright in the United States. According to section 503.02(a) of Compendium II: Copyright Office Practices, typography and calligraphy are not copyrightable in themselves in the U.S.
England recognized copyright in typeface at least as early as 1916.[1] The current United Kingdom copyright statute, enacted in 1989, expressly refers to copyrights in typeface designs.[2] English law does consider that fonts are subject to copyright. However this only covers typefaces as such, as they are for example employed in fonts, and not their actual use[3]).
In Switzerland, there is no specific law for the protection of typefaces. The jurisdiction so far has been very reluctant in admitting legal protection of any sort to typefaces. However, the denied protection is not imperative: in theory typefaces could be protected based on both copyright and design law.[4] Additionally, the name of a typeface can be protected by a trademark.
In Japan, typeface has been held not to be covered by copyright, on the ground that it functions primarily as a means of communicating information, rather than to appeal to aesthetic appreciation.[5]
Typefaces as such may be protected by a design patent in many countries (either automatically, or by registration, or by some combination thereof). A design patent is the strongest system of protection but the most uncommon. It is the only US legal precedent that protects the actual design (the design of the individual shapes of the letters) of the font.[6] A prominent example is the European Union,[7] where the automatic protection (without registration) expires after three years and can be extended (by registration) up to 25 years.[8]
Germany (in 1981) passed a special extension (Schriftzeichengesetz) to the design patent law (Geschmacksmustergesetz) for protecting typeface designs. This permits typefaces being registered as designs in Germany, too.
The names of particular fonts may be protected by a trademark.This is the weakest form of protection because only the font name itself is being protected. For example, the letters that make up the trademarked font Palatino can be copied but the name must be changed.[6]
The basic standard for copyrighted digital font use is that a license is required for each individual font or typeface used on a computer.[6] Under the license, typically, fonts are licensed only for use on one computer. These End User License Agreements (EULAs) generally state that fonts may only be used on machines that have a valid license.[6] These fonts cannot be shared by multiple computers or given to others. These licenses can be obtained in three ways: directly from the font authors (e.g., Adobe), as part of a larger software package (e.g., Microsoft Office), or through purchasing or downloading the font from an authorised outlet.[6]
In October of 2009, a $2 million copyright infringement lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court by Font Bureau.[9] They charged NBC, the television network, with neglecting to secure rights of fonts used on The Jay Leno Show and Saturday Night Live.[9] According to the suit, NBC used three of Font Bureau's trademarked fonts in their marketing campaign.[9] They purchased one software license and distributed copies of fonts called, Bureau Grotesque, interstate and Antenna.[9]
From 1993 to 1995, Bitstream and four other type companies successfully sued SWFTE for copyright infringement.[6] SWFTE was using special computer programs to take other typefounders' fonts, convert them and give them new names.[6] The case focused on the fact that SWFTE had used Bitstream's software to create these new fonts.[6]
A legal precedent was set in the case of Adobe vs. Southern Software Inc. (SSI).[6] SSI had used the program, FontMonger to copy and rename fonts from Adobe and others.[6] They assumed safety from prosecution because, though they had directly copied the points that define the shapes from Adobe's fonts, they had made slight adjustments to all the points so they were not technically identical.[6] Nevertheless, it was determined that the computer code had been copied.[6]