Author has trademarked common word; threatening other authors over its use

Yes. We’ve been over that already. I’m just pointing out that genericism is determined by the goods and services. You can’t just look at a word in a vacuum and say it is generic under trademark law.

 

I'm not convinced it is generic in her case. I think the better argument is that it is merely descriptive (and lacks secondary meaning), and also that she's asserting it against uses that aren't trademark infringement to begin with. I could see some arguments that it is generic, but I think they're weaker because the word isn't really a generic term for the goods at issue.

 

Exactly! She's partly disappeared from facebook ...

And she put a video up which was over an hour long of her complaining about being attacked by all the other authors out there. She brought autism into the rant (wtaf?!) and then went on about how everyone should have dreams and be able to fulfil those dreams and "do what they want". Yeah, right, unless it's a dream that she holds the fricken TM on!

Another author, wrote her an open letter which is actually quite good, and I think it hits the mark spot on. Regardless of how long she's been writing, she's only published within the last few years and really doesn't "get it", doesn't get how things work, how situations, plots, character names, words and titles can overlap because hey, there are only 26 letters in the English language and a finite number of combinations ...

There were over 17k signatures on the petition. 17k people can't all be wrong!

I hear (and see) JK Rowling has been tagged numerous times in various tweets as Hopkins had spouted off to another author that she actually held the copyright to "the character name 'Luna'."

 

But if I use Nike in a book based around Greek Godesses, Nike the shoe people wouldn't come after me, and Apple haven't exactly told fruit growers to change the name of their fruit to tree potato!

If she wanted to trademark anything, she should've trademarked "The Cocker Brothers" or "The Cocky Series"

 

I suddenly have the urge to create a new character named cocky Luna or luna the cocky one!

Edit: I think my mercenary group needs a woman, Luna Dephoxia the cocky one.

 

I know. I believe this has all been covered already, along with the reasons for it. Trademarks are tied to specific goods and services (famous marks get broader rights, however), and they have to be enforced against other trademark uses--not every use of a word is a trademark use.

 

She's ignorant, clearly. I hope the firm who filed her trademark application gave her some decent advice.

 

Nah! They just took her money and said okay, LOL.!

 

They have to have a good faith basis to make the filing. Which they may have had. But they don’t seem to be advising her on enforcement or any of this other stuff (maybe she doesn’t want to pay their rates).

 

I can't bring myself to watch the video (second hand embarrassment is soooo painful to me), but based on what's been reported by some folks I know who have, it sounds like this lady is 50 Shades of Batshit Insane.

 

I can't make the video work - Facebook tells me the page is unavailable. Does anyone have a link that's working currently?

 

Didn’t work for me either. Maybe she took it down.

 

Lol

 

Didn't read the whole thread here but this interesting bit was discussed over at AbsoluteWrite (I found the link):

And while we are on the topic, one of her two trademarks is probably invalid; it appears to rely on a font licensed from Creative Market under terms that said you can't get a trademark (edit: the creator has confirmed this).

 

I was hop'n to find the video on Youtube... but nope.. it's out there somewhere. Just a matter as to where to look. Funny enough, her official YouTube channel has comments and ratings disabled. LOL. And she is one self absorbed fucked up bitch.

 

I've picked up a couple-three more over it, but I haven't been as active in commenting on this matter as you.

 

That's what I'm suspecting. She could afford them for the filing, but now she's following up on her own, using the big Hollywood law firm's name as a threat.

My theory, anyway.

 

Oh man! The show just keeps getting better, LOL. I love to see this happen, lol.

 

I don't know if this is the video, but I found this. Good Lord she is full of herself (Cocky definitely applies). I couldn't watch much of it at all.... it goes on and on forever.

 

And IT'S already down. She's doing some scrambling, that's for sure!