There is a rumor that Leo Stoller, in the name of Sentra Industries, has filed upwards to 275 extension requests over the past few months to oppose recently published applications. I’ve seen one such request, and it provides a telephone number to call if you want to send money to XYZ Brand Licensing, where XYZ is part of the published mark. And XYZ doesn’t appear on Stoller/Rentamark’s 20 page list of the trademarks it purportedly owns.
The TTAB charges $300 in filing fees per class per opposition so good luck on those 275 oppositions.
Question for discussion: What to do? One attorney said to me: The TTAB won’t want to intervene because they’re not in a position to decide which if any of the 275 are legit.
I agree that the TTAB may not be in a position to take dispositive action for this reason. However, isn’t it possible that among these 275 are applicants who don’t read the Trademark Blog or TTABlog, and don’t know the background, and may cough up money? Based on what we know of judicial decisions against Stoller in the past, we have a reasonable apprehension regarding these requests for payments.
The Trademark Office is the government agency tasked with the administration of the trademark system, and it may be argued that within its duties is an obligation to protect applicants from this sort of thing.
At a minimum, could the TTAB send an informational bulletin to applicants who have received extension requests from Sentra?
UPDATE: I am told that as of January 10, recent filings have approached 300. Also, some requests have been filed in the names of Central Mfg. Co. or Inc.
Wikipedia entry on Stoller here.

A new anti-cyberstalking law has the following language:
Whoever…utilizes any device or software that can be used to originate telecommunications or other types of communications that are transmitted, in whole or in part, by the Internet… without disclosing his identity and with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any person…who receives the communications…shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.
Some commentators have raised concerns that the language could be used to stifle critical speech (as in a pseudonymous blogger urges readers to take some act calculated to annoy a public figure). Others point out that the language tracks that of state statutes.
This is not my area of law and I defer to First Amendment lawyers out there. However, my immediate reaction to the language is the lumping together of all means of communications over the Internet. I have been the subject of ‘harrassing language’ via website, email and instant message (what can I tell you, I make friends wherever I go), and the targeted nature of email and IM make a difference.

Via Businessofbaseball.com, via May It Please The Court, a complaint filed by CBC, a vendor of rotisserie (or fantasy) league statistics software and services, against Major League Baseball. Fantasy league sports involve fans drafting their own teams of (real) players and competing based on the statistics of those players. Some media, such as USA TODAY and Sporting News, will administer leagues for readers, and CBC provides statistics for them. CBC had had a license to use the names of the players, but then the players union signed an exclusive contract witl MLB, which did not complete a license with CBC. CBC now seeks a judgment that it is not infringing MLB’s rights.

From 43(B)log:
‘Plaintiff . . . makes aftermarket leather seat covers for many different kinds of cars . . . Defendant Nissan has an approved aftermarket leather program (ALP) for some Nissan models, allowing Nissan dealers to buy aftermarket leather from approved vendors for installation by the vendors.
In 2003, in response to new federal air bag safety standards, Nissan began installing an ‘advanced’ air bag in some cars. This air bag uses a pressure sensor in the seat to detect whether a child or an adult is in the front passenger seat and thus turns off the passenger-side air bag when a child is present. Nissan soon decided to exclude cars with the advanced air bag from its ALP, based on concerns that installation of aftermarket leather could cause an air bag malfunction, posing a safety hazard. Nissan didn’t conduct any tests to see whether this was true.”
43(b)log discussion as to whether Nissan’s bulletin to dealers constitutes ‘advertising’ for false advertising analysis here.