Is #cockygate over? Has the battle been won?
If you’re a little late to the party (which I certainly was), an author, who shall remain nameless on our blog, decided to trademark the word ‘cocky’ for their own use in their series. Other authors who used this word in their titles were being targeted, flagged, and forced to change their own works for the sake of legal matters. Lives were flipped upside down and literature was nearly changed forever.
As of recently, a judge denied this author’s motion to practically stop all further publication of upcoming works containing the word in their title. You read that right: denied.
The judge even went on to say that “‘cocky’ is a common word and a weak trademark.” Savage.
Anyway, the word may not be entirely free from its chains but it will live on to see virtual bookshelves!