Plan solves court clog and undermines the power of trademark trolls

The liberal use of the power to cancel deters acts of trademark “trolls,” such as Stoller, who have failed to make legitimate use of their marks. This in turn results in long-term savings. Cancellation cuts off the presumptions associated with registration and thus may result in fewer cases filed by trademark trolls. The fewer frivolous trademark infringement suits that are filed, the fewer judicial recourses and time that are wasted. In Central Manufacturing, and every other case in which Leo Stoller had filed suit, the end result was the same: dismissal or a grant of summary judgment. In addition to deterring trademark trolls from filing suit, cancellation protects producers from the threat of suit and/or licensing demands for the use of a trademark that is no longer valid. In Central Manufacturing, for example, the plaintiff had “repeatedly sought ways to get around the law’s prohibition of stockpiling of unused marks, and this case is no different.”185 By cancelling the plaintiffs mark, the party loses a valuable instrument in negotiation: the party no longer has a conceptually concrete basis for threatening to file suit. Where a registration is at issue, parties are much more likely to take the threat seriously than if only common law rights are asserted. Thus, the trademark troll loses an important bargaining chip when attempting to extort licensing fees from unsuspecting, innocent users of marks: the ability to claim ownership rights to, and presumptions associated with, registration of a trademark.