Font IP is special!

The names are trademarks, so you can't copy them exactly, but you can use suggestive alternates. Palatino => Palatable, for example. TeX Gyre Pagella is a very nice version.

The code is copyrighted, so you can't copy the code exactly. But -- you can rasterize a font, print it, scan it, vectorize the output, add your own hints, and now have a clean re-implementation. The shapes of the letters are not copyrightable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property_protecti...

From the about section: "Comic Code only takes inspiration from Comic Sans and was drawn entirely from scratch, in case you are wondering."

So that's effectively asking why Arial doesn't violate Helvetica's copyright.

Case law on copyright for fonts is complicated, with fonts generally having less protection than other works. My impression is that Comic Code is no more derivative of Comic Sans than, say, Arial is of Helvetica.

Hi, the designer here. As for the font name, Microsoft owns "Comic Sans" but not "Comic" or "Sans" alone. And as already explained, fonts are copyrighted as software codes and a new one has to be made from scratch (except of course when you are the owner or permitted in license agreement). In terms of visual similarity, Comic Neue is much closer to Comic Sans but MS hasn't done anything with it. If that's fine, Comic Code surely would be too. In any case, I did speak with the MS guys prior to release, and they saw no issues with either trademark or copyright.