FONT WARS: NAVIGATING TYPEFACE COPYRIGHT PROTECTION AND FONT LICENSING PITFALLS IN THE DIGITAL AGE
Abstract
Typography plays a central role in modern branding and digital communication, yet U.S. intellectual property law governs typefaces and fonts through a fragmented and outdated framework. While copyright law protects font software as computer code, it denies protection to the underlying typeface design and treats them as purely functional, leading to increasingly aggressive font licensing disputes.
This Note examines how the current law fails to account for the dual artistic and functional nature of typefaces, leaving users unprotected while enabling ambiguous licensing regimes and opportunistic typeface trolling. Through an analysis of copyright jurisprudence, separability doctrine, and real-world licensing litigation, this Note emphasizes practical consequences of these doctrinal shortcomings for designers, businesses, and consumers.
Rather than proposing a single doctrinal overhaul, this Note advances a set of pragmatic reforms: reconsidering the role of functionality in typeface protection, strengthening alternative intellectual property mechanisms, encouraging proactive licensing compliance, and standardizing damages to reduce abusive litigation.
* J.D. Candidate, 2026, University of Illinois College of Law; B.S. 2020, University of California San Diego. This Note does not claim to resolve every tension in the law governing typefaces and font licensing. It offers practical pathways forward, written in the hope of encouraging clearer doctrine and fairer enforcement to maximize creative expression in a digital economy. Thank you to the editors, staff, and members of the University of Illinois Law Review for their care, rigor, and dedication throughout the publication process. Special thanks to Professor Jacob S. Sherkow for his invaluable guidance.
The full text of this Note is available to download as a PDF.