[OTVar] The highly unlikely situation when your Variable Font morphs to somebody else's design.

Marcin Dybaś · April 2017

The situation when somebody has designed a Variable Font and it's in-between interpolations are accidentally very similar to other designs is rather unlikely...

But what if somebody does that with my design? (shame on him!)
This is highly connected to font copyrights which as i recall may be different depending on the country?

Anyway, here's a simulation:
http://quick.as/DvvJCj7Pe

(i added "True" instance just so it's easy to view the interpolated "accident")

Thomas Phinney · April 2017

To the extent that the similarity is accidental, it is unlikely to infringe. To the extent that somebody does it on purpose, they deserve what they get.

There are kerfuffles fairly regularly about new typefaces that some people think are too similar to previous typefaces. This introduces a few extra wrinkles, for sure. But I don’t expect the accusations to fly any more often than in the recent past. Do you?

Marcin Dybaś · April 2017

I agree. It won't be a much bigger problem than it is now. It also takes a lot more work and will be super obvious when somebody points out that there is a hidden design in between.