“US Copyright Application filing” for font software?

Göran Söderström
Göran Söderström Posts: 40
edited October 2014 in Type Business
I have recently been asked to prepare a set of custom fonts I designed to register a “US Copyright Application filing”. What this means is that the company I worked for want to register the actual code of the font software. They will register both the code and the design pattern but my question is only about the code.

The lawyers in the US are asking for this:

”a copy of the list of files for the font typeface software rending computer program. If there is only one file, then a listing of the files is not needed. I will also need the first fifty and last fifty pages of the largest file in the list. Once again, if the software has only one file, I will need the first fifty pages and the last fifty pages of the program.”

The only thing I come up with is to make an XML-file, but not sure if this is showing the actual “programming code” of the font.

Does anyone have any experience on this? Any help is much appreciated.
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Comments

  • Mark Simonson
    Mark Simonson Posts: 1,739
    A .ttx (XML) file can be used. I've done it and it works.
  • Göran Söderström
    Göran Söderström Posts: 40
    Oh, that’s great to hear! Thanks.
  • Thomas Phinney
    Thomas Phinney Posts: 2,896
    Yup, what Mark said.
  • Michael Jarboe
    Michael Jarboe Posts: 265
    How do you make a .ttx from a .ufo or .vfb? What is the process? Thanks.
  • Thomas Phinney
    Thomas Phinney Posts: 2,896
    You need to install TTX/FontTools, from here: https://github.com/behdad/fonttools/

    You need to first compile your fonts into a final format, such as .otf or .ttf. Then run it through TTX to create a .ttx file. This can be as simple as drag and drop, if Behdad has maintained that functionality.
  • Göran Söderström
    Göran Söderström Posts: 40
    I can confirm this now also. The XML-file was what the lawyers wanted.
  • Michael Jarboe
    Michael Jarboe Posts: 265
    edited April 2015
    Wouldn't TTX conversion be a good thing to have included in the TransType app?
  • Mark Simonson
    Mark Simonson Posts: 1,739
    That would be nice, but is it so hard?

    1. Open Terminal.app
    2. Type “ttx “
    3. Drag the font (or fonts) onto the terminal window
    4. Hit return
    Done.

    It would probably be more steps to do it with TransType.
  • Michael Jarboe
    Michael Jarboe Posts: 265
    When I type ttx and return I get all the options listed, but when I type ttx and drag a .otf I get some type of 'No such file or directory' no matter where I drag the font file from.
  • attar
    attar Posts: 209
    Is there a space in the path or name of the file? If so it needs to be enclosed in quotes.
  • Mark Simonson
    Mark Simonson Posts: 1,739
    edited April 2015
    Make sure you type a space after “ttx”. Maybe you didn’t notice that in step 2.

    Also, to Adrien’s suggestion: dragging a file onto the Terminal window should automatically escape any spaces with a backslash. No need for quotes around the path string.
  • Michael Jarboe
    Michael Jarboe Posts: 265
    Thanks guys! That worked perfectly, sorry I'm not to saavy with the code/development side of things, there's always something minor I overlook, I was just missing that space after ttx.
  • Mark Simonson
    Mark Simonson Posts: 1,739
    The command line isn’t really that hard, it’s just that the UI is in your head instead of on the screen. It’s not all that different from remembering keyboard shortcuts. You don’t need to know very many commands for it to be useful (I certainly don’t), but it can be the simplest way to do things sometimes.
  • Michael Jarboe
    Michael Jarboe Posts: 265
    Do you actually submit a ttx file for each style in a typeface family, and is it done digitally on disk or printed out?
  • Mark Simonson
    Mark Simonson Posts: 1,739
    In my case, it was my lawyer who did it. As I recall, he ttx’d the fonts, printed them out, and sent the first few pages with the filing. I don’t recall all the details. It was a few years ago.

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