Claim No: IL-2024-000036 - [2025] EWHC 2172 (Ch)

Fecha: 22-Ago-2025

The Infringements Claim

The Infringements Claim

83.

The Infringements Claim relates to eight additional typefaces which were not the subject of the Newcastle Claim. Given my findings above, I can deal with this issue briefly.

84.

Mrs Lish accepts that the Infringements Claim was not included in the Newcastle Claim but could have been. She says that, at the time, she took the pragmatic decision not to include these additional typefaces because:

For the Cyrillic extensions, Mrs Lish did not claim ownership to the whole family, only the Cyrillic extension;

ii)

The Cyrillic extensions were not something she could market independently of the remainder of the typeface;

iii)

In relation to Ordax, Mrs Lish developed the typeface from the base drawings of another designer – whilst she could likely stop third parties from using her development, she could not use or license the typeface herself; and

iv)

Her pragmatic decision was based on her understanding that she had been properly paid royalties for these typefaces, such that when she discovered that she had not, the basis for her pragmatic decision fell away, and it was not appropriate to claim in respect of those typefaces as well.

85.

I have found above that it would be an abuse of the court’s process to allow Mrs Lish to continue with a claim for unpaid royalties in relation to typefaces which were pleaded in the Newcastle Claim. Typefaces which Mrs Lish knew she could have included in those proceedings, but decided not to (pragmatically or otherwise) can be in no better position. The Infringements Claim should therefore also be struck out.