united-kingdom intellectual-property trademark
Can I trademark a logo that contains a font licensed under SIL OFL?
<p>I am trying to determine whether I am able to use an OFL font in my UK trademark.</p>

<p>From the research I have performed myself, I have determined that OFL fonts can be used in logos, as shown here: <a href="http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&amp;item_id=OFL-FAQ_web#c26665c2" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&amp;item_id=OFL-FAQ_web#c26665c2</a></p>

<p>At this point I would assume this means trademarking a logo that contains an OFL font would be fine as a lot of logos are trademarked.</p>

<p>I scanned the page for any mention of the word trademark and found this: <a href="http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&amp;item_id=OFL-FAQ_web#69733fb4" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&amp;item_id=OFL-FAQ_web#69733fb4</a></p>

<blockquote>
  <p>3.7 If a trademark is claimed in the OFL font, does that trademark need to remain in modified fonts?</p>
  
  <p>Answer: Yes. Any trademark notices must remain in any derivative fonts
  to respect trademark laws, but you may add any additional trademarks
  you claim, officially registered or not. For example if an OFL font
  called "Foo" contains a notice that "Foo is a trademark of Acme", then
  if you rename the font to "Bar" when creating a Modified Version, the
  new trademark notice could say "Foo is a trademark of Acme Inc. - Bar
  is a trademark of Roadrunner Technologies Ltd.". Trademarks work
  alongside the OFL and are not subject to the terms of the licensing
  agreement. The OFL does not grant any rights under trademark law. Bear
  in mind that trademark law varies from country to country and that
  there are no international trademark conventions as there are for
  copyright. You may need to significantly invest in registering and
  defending a trademark for it to remain valid in the countries you are
  interested in. This may be costly for an individual independent
  designer.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>I am trying to determine if this means I can or can't use the OFL font in a trademark, but the terminology is confusing me and this is where I would like assistance.</p>

<p>As for the logo itself, it is 4 letters long all of which use the OFL font. The fourth letter is heavily modified to make the logo a little more unique so that it is not purely made up from the font.</p>

<p>Thanks in advance.</p>

<p>The part you quote from the FAQ is about retaining trademark notices in derivative fonts you may create and distribute. It has nothing whatsoever with <em>using</em> the font to create a trademarked logo.</p>

<p>But to answer your question: Yes, you may trademark a logo that contains a font licensed under SIL OFL.</p>

<p>SIL OFL is a <em>copyleft</em> license, but an explicit exemption is provided for "documents" created using the font:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>The requirement for fonts to remain under this license does not apply to any document created using the Font Software.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>A logo is a document created using the font, and it can me made proprietary by trademarking it.</p>
