The other day I received an e-mail from another graphic designer with a cease and desist letter. She claimed that a brand new wedding stationery of mine looked substantially similar or copied. After review of both sets of stationary, they did look substantially similar in some areas of the design even though we used different fonts.

Due to the cease and desist letter, a whirlwind of emotions went through me for a couple of days. I quickly contacted a lawyer and was referred to a copyright lawyer in St. Louis. I also started doing a lot of research throughout the weekend. The design that was considered to be substantial similarity is a brand new design I just added to the etsy shop. You can see it below.

I don’t copyright my designs. However I encourage you that if you design typography and claim copyright, you need to know your copyright laws. This is a great resource to learn the copyright facts on typography.

KNOW YOUR COPYRIGHT LAWS BEFORE YOU CLAIM COPYRIGHT

After a weekend of research, I found plenty of legal material where typography cannot be copyrighted. Iā€™m not going to express my opinions to you, but I am going to say the facts and where you can get this information yourself.

According to Wiki and Intellectual Property Protection of Typefaces, it states that Typeface is not protected. There was a lawsuit filed by Eltra Corp (Eltra Corp V. Ringer). Eltra Corp was trying to copyright a specific designed font and the US Copyright Office denied the request. They viewed typeface as not a ā€œwork of artā€ and more of a utility that everyone can use to create the alphabet. Eltra Corp appealed the decision and the United States Court of Appeals upheld the decision.

Copyright.gov is a great resource of information to know the facts. In one of their PDF files that was updated on 1/2012, it states;

ā€œFurthermore, the format, layout, and typography of a work is not protected..ā€

Copyright.gov also clarifies what else is not covered with typography in this link;

…familiar symbols or designs; mere variations of typographic ornamentation, lettering or coloring…

DID MY LAWYER RESPOND TO THE CEASE AND DESIST?

With the information I found, I sent it to the graphic designer who sent me the cease and desist letter. I told her that I had a copyright lawyer on stand-by (which is true, I did) and that I also contacted another legal team where we both sell our goods at. Their legal team also referred me to their copyright policy which stated the same facts on typography. I mentioned that the lawyer is waiting to see if we can resolve this ourselves.

The other graphic designer responded and we did get the situation resolved. Why they are similar, she agreed that the overall design is different. I get to keep the design listed for sale.

WHAT LESSON DID I LEARN?

I now know more about typography laws (that fonts cannot be copyrighted) and I also picked up a few copyright tidbits on other items during my research.

So what lessons have you learned from reading this? Or have you learned any lessons lately?

 

Update: I no longer have this design for sale.Ā  I decided to remove it and came up with a new, different design called “Rustic Country State.”