Segoe

In 2004, Microsoft registered certain Segoe and Segoe Italic fonts as original font designs with the European Union trademark and design office. The German font foundry Linotype protested, citing Segoe UI's similarity to its licensed Frutiger family of typefaces. In its submission to the EU, Microsoft claimed that Linotype had failed to prove that it had been selling Frutiger and Frutiger Next prior to 2004. The EU rejected these claims, and in February 2006, the EU revoked Microsoft's registration.[2] Microsoft did not appeal the decision. Microsoft still holds United States design patents for various Segoe-based fonts.

During the same period, in late 2004, after six years under the Agfa Corporation, TA Associates acquired the Monotype assets and incorporated the company as Monotype Imaging. Later, in August 2006, Monotype Imaging acquired Linotype.[3] By the end of 2006, the company that had challenged Microsoft's Segoe patents (Linotype) was a subsidiary of the company that had originally licensed Segoe to Microsoft (Monotype).

The clearest differences (from top to bottom) Segoe UI, Frutiger, and Segoe

Several letters have distinctly different forms in Segoe UI and Frutiger, reflecting Segoe UI's different intended use: low-resolution screen display, rather than airport signage (Frutiger). However, Ulrich Stiehl asserts that many of these differences were introduced in later versions of Segoe UI – earlier versions of Segoe UI were closer to Frutiger.[4][5]

In June 2005, Scala, an electronic signage company (unrelated to the typeface FF Scala) removed Segoe from its InfoChannel product "due to licensing issues".[6] Scala replaced Segoe with Bitstream Vera fonts.

In November 2005, Simon Daniels, a program manager in Microsoft's typography group, stated that "The original Segoe fonts were not created for or by Microsoft. It was an existing Monotype design which we licensed and extensively extended and customized to meet the requirements of different processes, apps and devices."[7]

In April 2006, a Microsoft public relations spokesperson, who asked not to be named, stated:

Segoe was an original design developed by Agfa Monotype (now Monotype Imaging) in 2000. In 2003, we acquired the original Segoe fonts and used them to develop an extended family of fonts retaining the Segoe name. Many of these new fonts received design patent protection in the United States. Segoe was not derived from Frutiger. Microsoft also has a current up-to-date license that allows us to distribute certain Frutiger fonts in connection with Microsoft products, including Office and Windows. There are distinct differences between Segoe and Frutiger. Additionally, unlike clone typefaces, the Segoe family of fonts are not metrically compatible with Frutiger so cannot be used as replacements.[8]

Under United States copyright law, the abstract letter shapes of functional text fonts cannot be copyrighted; only the computer programming code in a font is given copyright protection. This makes the production and distribution of clone fonts possible.

An early version of Segoe, possibly an evaluation version, was included with certain versions of SuSE Linux, but no longer ships as part of that operating system.

Segoe UI is optimized for Vista's default ClearType rendering environment, and it is significantly less legible when ClearType is disabled, except at key user interface sizes (8, 9 and 10 point) where Segoe UI has been hinted for bi-level rendering. The standard font size increased to 9 point in Windows Vista to accommodate for better layout and readability for all languages.

The Windows Vista version of Segoe UI (version 5.00) contains complete Unicode 4.1 coverage for Latin, Greek, Cyrillic and Arabic (Romans only), totaling 2843 glyphs in the regular weight.

Segoe UI uses distinct cursive italic script, whereas Frutiger and Helvetica use oblique type for italics.

• Segoe UI Mono is a variation of Segoe UI with monospace characters. It supports Latin (including Eastern European, and Turkish), Greek, Cyrillic, Hebrew and Thai characters, and symbols, geometric shapes and drawing elements. The family includes two fonts in two weights, without italics. It is the system kernel font for Windows 8 and above.[18]
• Segoe UI Symbol is a new font added in Windows 7 that includes new scripts/symbols such as Braille and Deseret, and, previously, Ogham and Runic glyphs. It is not, however, a "symbol charset-encoded font" (like MS Symbol), but rather it is a Unicode-encoded font with symbols assigned to respective Unicode code points.[16] Segoe UI Symbol also has some other miscellaneous symbols such as chess pieces, playing card and dice symbols (these glyphs formed the basis of the Segoe Chess and Segoe News Symbols fonts), box-drawing characters, block elements, technical symbols, mathematical operators, arrows, control pictures, and OCR-optimized glyphs.[19] In Windows 8, Segoe UI Symbol was extended to support Glagolitic, Gothic, Old Italic and Old Turkic (Orkhon) scripts,[16] all now moved to Segoe UI Historic. In Windows 8.1, it gained support for Meroitic Cursive (now moved to Segoe UI Historic) and Coptic script (found in both fonts).[16] The updated Segoe UI Symbol from Windows 8 has also been backported to Windows 7.[20]
• Segoe UI Historic is a new font added in Windows 10 to support ancient scripts. Glagolitic, Gothic, Meroitic Cursive, Ogham, Old Italic, Old Turkic, and Runic were moved from Segoe UI Symbol to Segoe UI Historic. Additionally supported are Brahmi, Carian, Coptic, Cypriot, Egyptian hieroglyphs (except for phallic ones since v 1.01), Imperial Aramaic, Inscriptional Pahlavi, Inscriptional Parthian, Kharosthi, Lycian, Lydian, Old Persian, South Arabian, Phoenician, Shavian, Sumero-Akkadian Cuneiform, Syriac (ʾEsṭrangēlā style), and Ugaritic scripts.[16]
• Segoe Boot is a vertically stretched font based on Segoe. Its vertical stretching allows the font to be rendered as the normal version when a 4:3 image (like the BIOS screen) is stretched to fill a screen with an aspect ratio of 16:9. It is included in the Windows 10 installation ISO.
• Zegoe UI is a Zune-specific variation on Segoe.[21]
• In Windows 8.1, Microsoft added unofficial color support to fonts, first implemented in the Segoe UI Emoji font.[22][23][24] As of Windows 10, this has been formally supported with UWP applications natively using DirectWrite/Direct2D for text rendering with color font support, and first-class emoji support including an emoji keyboard included in Windows 10 Fall Creators Update.[25]
• Segoe UI Variable is a variable font added in Windows 11 that scales better than Segoe UI on high-DPI monitors.[26]

• The Segoe UI font family can be obtained as part of Windows and Windows Server operating systems:
  • The classic Segoe UI design is included with Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2.
    • Certain Segoe fonts, but not Segoe UI, were included in Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, replacing Trebuchet MS. Microsoft Word Viewer and Microsoft PowerPoint Viewer 2007 were also install certain Segoe fonts.
    • Segoe UI is installed into Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 if the user installs Microsoft Office 2007, Microsoft Office 2010, Windows Live Messenger or Windows Live Mail.
  • The updated Segoe UI design is included with Windows 8 (since build 8130), Windows Server 2012 (since build 8140), Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows 10, Windows Server 2016, Windows Server 2019, Windows Server 2022 and Windows 11.
    • Segoe UI Variable is also included with Windows 11.
• A semilight version of Segoe UI is installed into Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 if the user installs Microsoft Office 2013 or Microsoft Office 2016.