Settlement may be coming for “cockygate”
A settlement may have been reached in the “cockygate” lawsuit.
The firm representing Tara Crescent and Jennifer Watson sent a letter, written jointly with plaintiff Faleena Hopkins’s counsel, saying that a settlement in principle has been reached.
Lawyer Marc Whipple, who is not involved in this case, said on Twitter that the lawyers “have basically asked the judge to hit ‘Pause’ until Friday, July 6.”
His Tweets continued: “They say that the plaintiff has agreed to this (which would be an *incredibly* foolish thing to lie about) so it seems likely that a settlement is in fact imminent. If there is no settlement by July 6, either party can ask the judge to hit 'play' and restart the proceedings.”
Hopkins, a romance author, had applied for a trademark for a "series of romance novels" containing the word "cocky" and sued after Crescent refused to retitle her books. Crescent has at least two books with "cocky" in the title.
Hopkins also sued author Kevin Kneupper, who has challenged Hopkins' trademark application, and Watson, a book marketer who helped promote Cocktales, an anthology intended to raise money for authors involved in trademark disputes.
Judge Alvin Hellerstein removed Kneupper from the lawsuit on June 1, the same day that he denied Hopkins's request for a temporary restraining order to halt publication of several books using the word "cocky" in the title.
In a separate legal development, Whipple tweeted Friday that Hop Hop Productions (Hopkins's company) has responded to Kneupper's petition to cancel the trademark.
Whipple's layman's-terms translation of the filing? "Basically, the whole thing is a large pile of 'Nuh-uh,' with the occasional twinkling 'Prove it' for decoration. Which is pretty standard for this sort of thing and should not be taken as denigration of Registrant's attorney."