Research On The Intellectual Property Right Protection Mode Of The Computer Typeface

As the tools of spreading information and the important carriers of human civilization,characters have been used for thousands of years. For millennia, our protection for thetypefaces, including the computers typefaces, has not been raised to the lawful level. Indigital era, the development of computer and Internet technology and the electronics, suchas computer entering common people’s life, each stage of production to distribution oftypefaces has been changed. The design of typefaces has developed from the professionaljob of printing industry to the computers typefaces and word stock industry. Abundant andvarious computer typefaces have changing consumers’ reading habits, and become aimportant part of the multicultural consume. In the10years of1990s’, our computertypefaces industry has experienced rapid development. After severe tests of the Internetwave,"Free" has become the real dynamic of the prosperity of Internet. Owning to thepopularity of PC, the free convenience brought by technologies and the rampant piracy,the word stock industry experience unprecedented ice-cold. The demand to be protectedby intellectual property rights is increasingly pressing for the word stock industry. Whileas an important part of China’s culture industry, strengthening the protection efforts for theword stock industry has become one of the focal point of the government.The computer word stock industry is a typical industry whose development needssafeguard by the intellectual property rights. While the computer typefaces which havehighly culture attribute has important implications for the development of culture industry.So the protection for computer word stock industry requires close attention and need to bekeep strengthening. Yet until now, countries around the world has not established a unifiedprotection system or executed international treaty. China also has no directly relatedlegislation. And even the word font is not mentioned in any legal norms. At present, theonly related legislation can be referred is The Copyright Law of the People’s Republic ofChina, the Protection Byelaw of Computer Software and The Anti-Unjust CompetitionLaw, etc. In the judicial practice there is also no unified or instructive case. Theintroduction of the legislation or the related legislative interpretation has become the urgent need of protection of the computer typefaces. And before this, we should first clearthe legal attribute of computer typefaces and what kind of intellectual property rights theyshould be entitled. The third part introduces the relevant international treaty and therelevant legislations and cases on the subject of the major countries all over the world;The last part of the article put forward a solution to the problem and legislative proposals,such as: copyright should not be taken as the main protection mode,individual casejudging principle, end-user license agreements and the separate industrial copyrightprotection law should be made.