One of the type designs I am working on is a revival of Eagle Bold, an ATF typeface attributed to Morris Benton in 1933. It’s going to be a simple version and won’t be named Eagle to prevent confusion with revivals already on the market. I expect to have it ready to go by the end of the month and am trying to decide if I need to license anything from whomever owns the remainders of ATF.

From my point of view there is no need to license anything. I’m not planning to use the name Eagle, so there don’t appear to be any trademark issues. From what I can tell the original letters were designed for the NRA—a US Government agency—in 1933, which I think would put the rights into the public domain if copyrights had ever existed for type in the US, and Benton adapted Coiner’s design, so it doesn’t appear that I have any ethical obligation to work out a license with the current owners of ATF.

Thoughts?