Are computer fonts protected by copyright law? What about the Alphabet?

While researching copyright infringement, I began to wonder if the Alphabet could be copyright protected. I came across an article from the Computer Law Review and Technology Journal—Summer 1998 written by Jonathan L. Mezrich. http://www.naavi.org/cl_editorial_04/copyright_font_case.pdf

This article discusses a court case from 1998 between Adobe Systems, Inc. v. Southern Software, Inc. regarding copyright protection of software programs that create fonts. The article explains that “typeface” is considered to be alphanumeric characters; whereas “font” represents the typeface using a computer file or program. It goes on to clarify that “fonts” are further categorized into two types: bitmapped fonts and scalable fonts.

The court ruled in favor of Adobe Systems, Inc. and determined that software programs used to create fonts with distinct typefaces are protected by copyright law. Prior to this court case – typeface, fonts and font-generating software were apparently not allowed copyright registration. It was interesting to learn that after the court ruling the Copyright Office began to allow copyright registration of scalable fonts (i.e. font-generating software). However, they continued to not allow registration of bitmapped fonts (i.e. computerized representation of a typeface).

Now back to my original search topic – Can the Alphabet be copyright protected? I’m not sure about the actual letters, but the “Alphabet Song” does hold a copyright. The lyrics appear to have been copyrighted by Charles Bradlee in 1835, with the musical arrangement by Louis Le Maire. The tune claims to be based on an old French melody named “Ah, vous dirai-je, Maman”, of which Mozart wrote twelve variations on the piano. The same tune was used for "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star".