[michaelt]

The article contains an image [1] showing several tech-company-funded fonts side-by-side.

The fonts have some differences, but I'd have to agree with you the changes are so subtle it's hard to believe they resulted from an attempt to make a _radically_ new typeface.

[1] https://www.arun.is/blog/custom-typefaces/unique_typefaces_m...

[mattferderer]

I'm curious if there are any lawsuits based on basically tracing & duplicating fonts? Does adding the slightest accent to the letter "a" allow you to trace the other 99%.

Also many of these look like they just adjusted the weight ever so slightly. With variable fonts, I'm curious how this come into play when considering copyrights.

[dmerfield]

Per Ch 37, Sec. 202.1(e) of the Code of Federal Regulations, typefaces cannot be copyrighted in the United States:

https://www.bitlaw.com/source/37cfr/202_1.html

Note that although the design of the typeface is not copyrightable, the computer programs which generate typefaces (‘fonts’) contain elements which are:

https://www.copyright.gov/history/mls/ML-443.pdf

[mark-r]

While they may not be copyrightable, you can get a design patent: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property_protecti.... I've read that Adobe and Microsoft have both protected some fonts this way.

[topynate]

The shapes of the letters themselves aren't copyrightable in the US, so that if you vector-traced them perfectly, using your own "control points", you could distribute – and in fact, would hold copyright in – the resulting font file.

When discussing copyright "font" doesn't refer to the shapes of the letters (which comprise a "typeface") but the programmatic implementation of that typeface, which has been held to involve independent creativity. So if you take an existing vector font file, and alter the control points, you've created a derived work.

The situation is different in many other countries, which do allow for a copyright in a typeface. Generally the term of copyright is much less for a typeface than for many other works.

[jakobegger]

That image is a bit misleading. Those fonts all have a very different feel in the UI.

For example, I never really liked when Apple switched from Lucida Grande as the main UI Font to Helvetica, and I was very relieved when they replaced Helvetica with San Francisco.

I think San Francisco is a decent UI font -- it's much better than Helvetica. I don't particularly like it, but at least it doesn't annoy me.

The differences are subtle. If you show me short strings I probably wouldn't know them apart, but changing the font for the whole UI has a big effect.

[aasasd]

Short examples aren't indicative of how fonts look in longer text or even in different short lines (headings and such). It's a persistent problem when evaluating fonts on font sites: e.g. I can't try a longer text on Google Fonts.

[zuzun]

I'd say Netflix Sans goes for the Circular look, Cereal tries to be a Proxima Nova, San Francisco is cross between Roboto and DIN and Roboto itself is a modern Univers.

[oneplane]

Apple also has Menlo which is designed for Terminal-type CLI usage, looks a lot like Monaco which they used before that, dating back to the classic OS. Both have elements from Courier which (to me) has a slightly more sensible set of ascenders.