From: burley@geech.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Craig Burley)
Newsgroups: comp.fonts,gnu.misc.discuss
Subject: Re: Debasing other people's designs (Was: help make fonts for GNU)
Date: 15 Sep 92 16:15:51 GMT
	<1992Sep13.234559.1@hmcvax.claremont.edu> <5540@dove.nist.gov>
Followup-To: comp.fonts,gnu.misc.discuss
Organization: Free Software Foundation 545 Tech Square Cambridge, MA 02139
In-reply-to: gilligan@bldrdoc.gov's message of 14 Sep 92 23:36:33 GMT

In article <5540@dove.nist.gov> gilligan@bldrdoc.gov (Jonathan M. Gilligan) writes:

   I have read several references to design patents in association with
   typefaces (Bigelow and Holmes's Lucida Bright family comes to mind)
   but I do not know what this really means. Could someone who is
   conversant with the concept explain to us legal ignoramuses what a
   design patent protects, how it differs from a copyright, and how this
   protection would apply in the case of someone designing a similar
   typeface by nontrivial means (i.e., designing from scratch---rather
   than digitizing and fitting splines---a font that is recognizably
   similar but not identical)?

I hope someone who really knows the legalities will post.

However, from what I recall in my studies of copyright, trademark, and
patent issues a few years ago, the deal is basically this: a typeface may
be subject to a design patent if it its individual characters are primarily
of a "design" or a "work of art" nature.  E.g. characters that are various
arrangements of clowns, or leaves, or something.  I don't think the typefaces
that we normally see and use for communication can therefore fall under the
protection of a design patent.

That is, for a typeface, if the design of a character goes significantly beyond
making the character look appropriate to, and fit in with, other characters
in the typeface when used in ordinary textual context.  So if the typeface's
individual characters were designed to individually entertain, or grab one's
attention, or communicate significant information beyond that of the enclosed
context, I think that means it can be part of a design-patented typeface.

Design patents in general are, as I recall, to protect elements that perhaps
take part in a functional aspect of a device (though I'm most fuzzy about this;
maybe it can't have any functional use at all) but are designed largely around
artistic and/or product-identification characteristics rather than purely
functional concerns.  I vaguely recall that an example was of a bicycle made
with the front part of a frame bearing a circle with a simple "S" on it; that
particular element could have a design patent, preventing a competitor from
manufacturing a similar bicycle down to the circle "S" in front, even though
that "S" couldn't be copyrighted nor (because it isn't functional) patented.

I think the reason design patents aren't just trademarks is that they exist
in a context typically outside "trade", e.g. advertising.

Really, this is all based on a combination of vague memories plus some common
sense (and we all know how our legal principles derivce from common sense,
right? :-), so don't base any actions on this.  I'm just posting this as an
attempt to suggest some possible reasons for design patents.
--

James Craig Burley, Software Craftsperson    burley@gnu.ai.mit.edu
Member of the League for Programming Freedom (LPF)
Newsgroups: comp.fonts