After much discussion, we agreed internally on Morris Sans.Īll of this was during the brief interlude when Linotype fonts were not for sale on. I am not a lawyer, but Monotype’s lawyers believed this to be legitimate, IIRC, and the new typeface could not be published as Bank Gothic. Only when preparing the fonts for release did we become aware that Mark Solsburg had trademarked the name Bank Gothic. When I was almost finished, Linotype was acquired by Monotype. Some of the caps were based on old Ikarus data that Linotype had Linotype had sold Bank Gothic fonts in older, pre-PS-Type1 digital formats. Pretty chaotic! (IIRC, three competing/contradictory trademark claims for Bank Gothic can be found on MyFonts.)įWIW, when I was much younger and working at Linotype, I drew a Bank Gothic with a new lowercase. ![]() And ParaType credits Kingsley/ATF as the trademark holder. Elsner + Flake claim Bank Gothic as a trademark as well. Most commonly are references to brands/companies run by Mark Solsburg (GroupType, or its parent company Grosse Pointe Group LLC). In the matter at hand, do a web search on the phrase "Bank Gothic is a trademark" and one gets a bunch of different, conflicting, results. This suggests to me that at least some of the former ATF trademarks lapsed. This despite some attempts at licensing from Kingsley/ATF. I see some claimed by Monotype, some by Linotype, and many by all sorts of players. I don’t know all the details, but trademarks for formerly trademarked ATF names are today claimed as trademarks by everybody and their dogs. Any uncertainty about trademark status would certainly make other options more appealing. ![]() “Libre Bank Gothic” (or Bank Gothic Libre) is just one of many ideas, but I am kind of “eh” about it. In any case the actual name for this revival is still TBD! I have been batting around some ideas, but it is far from finalized. But I will freely admit that I am not a lawyer, and at this point in the discussion am getting out of my depth in this area. ![]() Given that later the trademark on American Type Founders / ATF itself even lapsed and was claimed by another entity, that makes me even more dubious about Kingsley/ATF holding specific typeface trademarks. Failure to use the trademark, with no intention to use it, causes loss of the trademark. I gather that at some point they made some efforts to later claim trademark rights, but as they were not using the trademarks themselves, I gather that is more than a little dubious (in US law, under the Lanham Act). Kingsley/ATF stopped doing/selling type in 1993 when they shut down the type foundry and sold all its hard assets. By “ATF IP rights” I assume you mean trademark? AFAIK that is the only right Kingsley/ATF has claimed, since 1993.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |