The letter of the law

changes in the registrability of typefaces as industrial designs before Brazil’s Patent and Trademark Office (IN PI – National Institute of Industrial Property)

Abstract

Human beings interact with their surroundings through a wide range of artifacts, one of which is the typeface, defined as a set of letters, numbers, or other symbolic characters whose forms are related by recurring design elements. As a creation of the mind, typefaces are eligible for protection under Intellectual Property Law. The registrability of typefaces as industrial designs underwent significant changes between 2019 and 2023. Although typefaces had traditionally been registrable as industrial designs before Brazil’s Patent and Trademark Office (INPI – National Institute of Industrial Property), such protection was denied under the first edition of the Industrial Design Guidelines, issued in 2019, on the grounds that typefaces did not fit the legal definition set forth in Article 95 of the Industrial Property Act. The second edition of the Industrial Design Guidelines, published in 2023, reshaped the protection of typefaces by reaffirming their eligibility for registration as industrial designs, this time under a different and more contemporary normative framework, better suited to the nature and uses of this creation of the mind.