Jim --

Just to clarify: Typeface names are protected (if at all) by trademark law, not copyright. That is, typeface names can be protected as product names -- elements of business and trade -- not as intellectual property.

-- Kent.

Nick Curtis was being sued by Berthold for the same thing. The names were different, but still infringing :rolleyes:

I haven't heard anything new about it, however.

"I wondered if anyone knows where the law stands on this kind of issue"

Typically, the law stands on the side of those with the bigger lawyers and bankroll.

Well, to be fair, the law may not stand on their side, but the litigation procedures favor their side negating the need for the law to really ever get involved.

The law is made by the rich, for the rich.

hhp

Which "large foundry" is sending the letters?

In the UK the person who looses a case has to pay the fee's of both parties. Is that not the case in the US & Germany?

How about naming a font as Hertbold or Huckfertbold?

> Now that that's made very clear...

Riiight. You need to realize that such disclaimers only fend off potential legitimate lawsuits...

> they fake the whole "Berthold successor" thing.

Tell that to Baseline magazine, RE their most-recent directory (digital font foundries)...

hhp

> sue as a way to eliminate competition.

It's worse than that - it's simply to make money - it's a business.

hhp

Burthold

"OK, lets start a fund, everyone give ten dollars and we'll register a trademark 'fuckberthold' for use as a font name worldwide."
.....

A typefounders

By the way, here's another example of Berthold's litigious bullying: they sued Myfonts in June.

http://cgm.cs.mcgill.ca/~luc/bertholdvsnick.html

Uh, sorry, I thought that was a big scoop. Looks like Luc is staying on top of this one.

another frivolous lawsuit...

Abercrombie & Fitch is suing American Eagle to
prevent AE from using the number '22"
on its apparel.

Abercrombie claims a "common-law" trademark
and has sued AE several times in the past
unsuccessfully.

Could Berthold be suing to get some insight into
myfonts/bitstream's finances?

Little late to seeing the 17-pg. declassified PDF,
but I find it priceless. Nice work putting that together
Stefan.

Keep giving Berthold rope...

Well, DIN was never really a font.
It's basically to FF DIN what "Highway Alphabet Series E(Modified)" is to Interstate.

hhp

> Well, DIN was never really a font.

It's still a font, Hrant. It's displayed in my 1985 Letraset catalogue as DIN 16(m), DIN 17(m), and DIN 17. What would make it *not* a font? The fact that it was an industrial or governmental standard? I'm just curious as to your rationale. Quite frankly, I consider Highway Alphabet Series E (Modified) a font as well...

> [DIN is] displayed in my 1985 Letraset catalogue

Oh yeah? Huh, I thought it was only used internally by the German highway system. So then sure, it is a font - as long as the spacing is defined too*. And I guess I'm with Joe about wondering why the FF DIN name was not an issue. Maybe because both the Letraset one and FF one are derived from the original German highway one, and that one is in the public domain? In the same way that there are many fonts that look like Interstate, but FontBureau can't complain.

* If there's no spacing info, you could say it's not really a font - it's just a bunch of letters. A font is notan, not just the blackbodies.

> I consider Highway Alphabet Series E (Modified) a font as well.

Well, even though it's in the public domain (which is probably why the name is not protected - except it's too clunky to "borrow" anyway), since from what I know it's a bunch of letterform drawings with spacing definitions, then I guess it is indeed a font, even though it requires a human to render it by hand (the way it's "encoded") - kinda like Letraset in fact!

hhp

> So then sure, it is a font - as long as the spacing is defined too

Just like all Letraset dry-transfer lettering, the character spacing is defined by little tick marks positioned at the baseline of each character. By matching up the ends of the ticks, you would approach reasonably correct letter spacing. (Subjective kerning and tracking decisions aside.) As you said, if it's 'a bunch of letterform drawings with spacing definitions, then I guess it is indeed a font...' Well, that sounds like a sheet of Letraset to me.

g.

Considering Interstate was derived from the glyph shapes and spacing published in the MUTCD it has no right to complain about look alikes, but it does have a right to complain about pirated font software.

The Highway Alphabet Series B, C, D, E, E(mod) and F exist both as; drawings & spacing charts, stand alone fonts and as integrated fonts in various sign creation applications. (SignCad, TraffiCad, etc)

If the design is a typefce and the software is a font then the Highway Alphabet series exists as both, but was only published in the MUTCD as a typeface.

James

Come on, let's use the word "font" accurately. In digital terms, how about "A software utility that sets type."?
That distinguishes it from a typeface. And from a page-layout application.

Could you call a draftsman's template (Just imagine using a DIN template with a Rapidograph pen) a font?

***

Also in the Highway Gothic "genre", Ray Larabie's "Blue Highway" (He must have been a Billy Idol fan...)

> Could you call a draftsman's template ... a font?

Why not? Just because there's no technology to actually render it a blazing speeds doesn't mean anything. It's a font. And this is coming from one of those uptight purists. :-)

hhp

The case zangofonts:
http://www.zangofonts.com/bertholdlegal.html
http://typographi.ca/000500.php

Interesting, in the letter Melissa M. Hunt uses the term "Berthold Types Limited ("Berthold Types") is the successor to the H. Berthold type foundry and ..." This is not true!
Berthold Types GmbH was bankrupted without any legal successor. The Hunts bought the trademarks and some of the digital outlines and photo type data before this happened. So all the rights are based on trademarks only. Berthold is dead.

HRB 31501 Berthold Types GmbH (Teltowkanalstr. 1 - 4, 12247 Berlin). Die Gesellschaft ist infolge rechtskr

OK lets start a fund, everyone give ten dollars and we'll register a trademark 'fuckberthold' for use as a font name worldwide.

they approached me again. Cosmolab, as we renamed it, is still too similar to Cosmos. Funny isn

Stefan,

try Cosma, Cozma or Costa. C=K?

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Now that that's made very clear...

I wish somebody had a list of the font names out there that
have been litigated over, and by whom. I'm sure it would be
very telling to see which are legitimate and which are
fabricated.

Do not blame on Berthold, it was a fine type foundry. Blame the Hunts - they fake the whole "Berthold successor" thing. http://www.myfonts.com/foundry/berthold-ag/

Is someone thinking that Kurt Weideman or URW gets a cent of the sales of the Corporate series from the bertholdtypes site?

So, don't hate the game, hate the playa?
__

Jim, I believe that's the case in the US also.

It's a legal game of chicken, played by people with money
to scare the people without money.

Speaking generally (since the practice isn't limited to the
type industry) it's common for firm A to threaten firm B,
in full knowledge that they (firm A) don't have the legal
grounds to win. They just know firm B doesn't have the
funds to engage in a long legal battle. In many instances
firm B would go bankrupt before they could win and have
their court costs paid by firm A. So firm B just has to suck it
up and change their behavior or compete differently or
whatever the issue is.

I should finish by saying I'm all for the use of the law when
it's necessary to protect legitimate copyrights / trademarks /
trade names / trade dress / et cetera. It just pains me when
people can't see how to make a real living and just sue as a
way to eliminate competition.

I visited Cape-Arcona.com today and saw on their first page, that Cape Arcona took down their font CA COSMOLAB.
Folks, you know they had problems with that big font foundry (it's Berthold right?) because CA renamed his CA COSMO who was to similiar to Bertholds font COSMO.
And after that, Bethold claimed, that the announcement that they renamed the font is not legal and that they must rename CA COSMOLAB to some other name WITHOUT mention that to CA customes. It's insane!
Haha, on a sidenote, they say "thank you" to the "unnamed type foundry" that they made Cape Arcona famous for that.

Or a font called "The Hunts" using the styles "Melissa" & "Harvey".

Gerlad: This "legal fund" needs an efficient lawyer too, knowing the bad practices of the Hunts.

Cape Arcona case update:

http://web1.158052.vserver.de/claudius/CA_catalog1.pdf

That was very well done.

I wonder if the E.F.F. would be interested in this case?

Someone needs to start a "boycott Berthold" campaign.

The hardest hit for the Hunts. To sue against the statement "legal Berthold successor".

http://www.bertholdtypes.com/info/pr_bof.html

Of all these instances, I can see how CA Cosmo is too
similar to Cosmo. I can see the argument that it could
cause confusion in the marketplace and be unfair
competition. (That said I don't get how DIN and FF DIN
can exist and get along together.)

But is Omicron Delta too close to Delta or City Slicker too
similar to City?

______
Here's another area re: naming:
I worked with a creative director who once worked with
Estee Lauder. She explained to me that Lauder wanted to
trademark a product line called Beautiful, but couldn't. The
trademark folks said it was too common a word.

You can see this play out. If Lauder could call their line
Beautiful, they could potentially prevent Mary Kay and MAC
and anybody else from saying their products are beautiful.

Similarly, the agency where I worked had the same problem
when they were naming JetBlue. One possible name was
"it." They took the name (and a few others) all the way
through the review process and got stuck in legal because
the name was, again, too ubiquitous to trademark. (The
FAA had the final veto, but that's another issue.)

______
Other lameness: Apple Computer, Inc.'s iTunes Music store
is being sued by Apple Corps., the Beatles' label, because
Apple is now in the music industry...

I remember it as "CA Cosmo-Saturn" vs "Cosmos" right?

Ewww. Anonymous, you're right. At least according to Luc Devroye.

CA Cosmo-Pluto and CA Cosmo-Saturn versus Berthold's Cosmos.

FF New Barmen versus Barmeno.

Boogaloo Boulevard versus Boulevard.

Unbelievable.