Graphic designer sues Transport Company over 40-year-old font

A 90-year-old graphic designer, Petr Tučný, is suing Prague’s Public Transport Company on allegations the firm used, without his permission, a font he designed in the late 1960s. The names of metro stations in the capital are written in an uppercase sans serif lettering known as Metron which Mr Tučný says he designed in the years 1967-69. The transport firm, though, maintains the font was the work of late graphic designer Jiří Rathouský - dating back to the early 1970s. Mr Tučný has countered that the other designer merely modified his original work. Due to high legal fees, Mr Tučný is seeking damages for the use of the font at only one station, Kačerov, on the “C” line. He is asking for 500,000 crowns. If he succeeds in court the complaint could be broadened, his lawyer said.