Can I trademark a logo that use Source Han Sans?

SIL Fonts
1

Hello! Please help me make it clear to understand several questions about license.

So I have three question:

1.Can I trademark a logo that uses Source Han Sans or other fonts licensed under SIL?

2.Is the SIL license available in China and other places？

3.Do fonts licensed under SIL will always stay commercial use free and will not change in the future？

Thanks for your help！

2

Hi -

  1. Yes you can trademark a logo you have created using an OFL font. However you should have clearly added some value to it to declare it your own. For example, if I just typed “abc” in an OFL font and trademarked it, it would be unreasonable to expect that no one else in the world could do the same thing. Note that trademark and copyright are two very different legal areas and are relatively unrelated. The OFL only concerns copyright and has nothing to do with trademark law.

  2. The SIL Open Font License is designed to be a global license, however some jurisdictions may not acknowledge that. I do not know if the license would be considered valid in a Chinese legal context.

  3. The OFL is a perpetual license. Once a font is licensed with the OFL that version of the font will always be under the terms of that license. No one can go back and remove or change the terms of that license.

Hope that helps,

Victor

3

Hi，Victor. Thank you for your patient reply！It really helps a lot.

I still want to ask more about question 1.

I have a little confuse about what you just said “add some value to it”. If I just type a company’s name in an OFL font without extra graphic design, and then trademarked it, would it be okay to do so since the mainly visual look is created by the font. Or do I need to design the font again or add an graphic pattern to the logo so that I could trademark the logo？
Here is an example of it. I made a picture about it.

Thanks for your help！

屏幕截图 2023-10-20 004814
屏幕截图 2023-10-20 004814969×815 51.9 KB

4

Sorry - You’ll need to contact a lawyer who knows the details of trademark law in the country. I don’t know what would be required. My response was mainly: Yes, you can trademark things you design using OFL fonts. I also suggested that you might want to make your logo unique and different, but I don’t know if that would be a requirement or not in Chinese trademark law.

5

Thank you very much for your help! Your answer helps me a lot. I just want to make sure that I can trademark things I design using OFL fonts. Thank you!