Depending on what the intellectual property is, you may have different answers. I don’t think that any European country’s design patents last so long that typefaces Nebiolo would have registered are still protected. Each European country has different laws, but I doubt other forms of intellectual property protection could apply to typeface designs in Italy that are not digital font files.
If you are referring to texts written by Nebiolo staff, or items printed by Nebiolo, only items from 1951 or earlier are likely in the public domain yet (whereas texts with bylines attributing them to specific authors probably only enter the public domain 70 years after the author’s death). To republish content like articles, etc – or whole Nebiolo specimens – from the 1950s onward, you might indeed need some sort of waiver from the company that currently owns the Nebiolo assets granting you publication rights.
Depends on what assets you mean. Matrices and other physical assets, historical documents and specimens, or intellectual property?
Aside from who bought matrices or such things, which are not relevant in terms of intellectual property, it’s as George Thomas wrote: Nebiolo Printech was started in 1993 after Nebiolo bankruptcy, so the legacy is there.
But I believe Dan is right in saying «Depending on what the intellectual property is, you may have different answers. I don’t think that any European country’s design patents last so long that typefaces Nebiolo would have registered are still protected.»
So, given Dan’s premise about patents which I consider correct, I think in case of living designers one should ask directly. Or, as with almost all of the Nebiolo designers which are dead, it could be a nice thing to ask surviving relatives, if one can track them down.
Comments
If you are referring to texts written by Nebiolo staff, or items printed by Nebiolo, only items from 1951 or earlier are likely in the public domain yet (whereas texts with bylines attributing them to specific authors probably only enter the public domain 70 years after the author’s death). To republish content like articles, etc – or whole Nebiolo specimens – from the 1950s onward, you might indeed need some sort of waiver from the company that currently owns the Nebiolo assets granting you publication rights.
But I believe Dan is right in saying «Depending on what the intellectual property is, you may have different answers. I don’t think that any European country’s design patents last so long that typefaces Nebiolo would have registered are still protected.»
So, given Dan’s premise about patents which I consider correct, I think in case of living designers one should ask directly. Or, as with almost all of the Nebiolo designers which are dead, it could be a nice thing to ask surviving relatives, if one can track them down.