Business involved In Property Rights

In the United States, maintains that designs are not covered by copyright, and it will not accept applications for their registration. . In Tufenkian Import/Export Ventures, Inc. v. Einstein Moomjy, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit recognized this rule when it held, “the public domain includes

  For example, both the generic shape of the letter 'L' and all of the elaborately more specific 'L's' from the hundreds of years of font designs that have fallen into the public domain.” However, if a design is novel and "non-obvious," Germany (in 1981) passed a special extension (Schriftzeichengesetz) to the design patent law (Geschmacksmustergesetz) for protecting them. This permits typefaces being registered as designs in Germany, too. So far, the United States courts have not published any opinions discussing whether a computer program creating a particular font might be intellectual property protected by the copyright laws.

  Thus far, however, most such cases against file sharers have been settled out of court England recognized copyright in typeface at least as early as 1916. The current United Kingdom copyright statute, enacted in 1989, expressly refers to copyrights in typeface designs. The also applies to designs produced before 1989. 

 Failure to follow the proper procedures would place the copier at risk of an infringement suit. Because of the difficulty of following every individual work, have been formed to collect royalties for hundreds (thousands and more) works at once. Though this market solution bypasses the statutory license, the availability of the statutory fee still helps dictate the price per work collective rights organizations charge, driving it down to what avoidance of procedural hassle would justify.