Slashdot Mirror
Owner of the Word Stealth 'Protecting' Rights
popo writes "Just when you thought ownership of intellectual property couldn't get any more absurd: The New York Times is reporting that the word 'Stealth' is being vigorously protected *in all uses* by a man who claims to exclusively own its rights. Not only has he gone head to head with Northrop Grumman, he has pursued it vigorously in the courts and has even managed to shut down "stealthisemail.com" (Steal This Email.com) because the URL coincidentally contains the word "stealth". What's terrifying is that he's gotten as far as he has."
he finds out about the 'Stealth' bomber?
My UID is prime... is yours?
Does this mean we have to change the C&C "stealth" tank to "unobtrusive and hard to see" tank"?
There's US copyright law for you.
exclusive rights to a word used centuries ago, this guy seems legit.
Dodge this, scumbag.
Talk about prior art. The word has existed since 1250.
nil
the (most likely terrible up and coming) movie?
If you die horribly on television, you will not have died in vain. You will have entertained us.
--Kurt Vonnegut
But he chooses to ignore the major motion picture 'Stealth' that's coming out soon?
According to TFA, the guy owns a brand named "Stealth," and he's essentially doing this to prevent other people from making brands similarly named.
...but is it art?
I just posted the word "Stealth" on my blog about 50 times. Just try and sue me. http://www.orangehairedboy.com/
Blog: orange haired boy
Columbia Pictures as well. That may have been a mistake, see HERE
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Everybody register a domain name using 'stealthis' as a prefix, then when he sues, we all go kick his ass.
I was unable to find this story.
What I don't understand is why Northrop's case was a stalemate (according TFA). I thought "stealth" had been around for much longer than 1985 (when this asshat applied for trademarks). Isn't this prior something or other? Is that how fcuked up USPTO is? IANAL, so these questions are for real!
This guy came after our production company Deep Stealth Productions a couple of years ago. It was a thick sheaf of papers, which I dismissed after reading about another small company who had received his form threat. Might have to blow the dust off the thing.
Evil sig is livE.
He Says He Owns the Word 'Stealth' (Actually, He Claims 'Chutzpah,' Too)
By COLIN MOYNIHAN
Can a man own a word? And can he sue to keep other people from using it?
Over the last few years, Leo Stoller has written dozens of letters to companies and organizations and individuals stating that he owns the trademark to "stealth." He has threatened to sue people who have used the word without his permission. In some cases, he has offered to drop objections in exchange for thousands of dollars. And in a few of those instances, people or companies have paid up.
"If a trademark owner doesn't go up to the plate each day and police his mark, he will be overrun by third-party infringers," Mr. Stoller, a 59-year-old entrepreneur, said in a telephone interview from his office in Chicago. "We sue a lot of companies."
Mr. Stoller owns and runs a company called Rentamark.com, which offers, among other things, advice on sending cease-and-desist letters and Mr. Stoller's services as an expert witness in trademark trials. Through Rentamark, Mr. Stoller offers licensing agreements for other words he says he owns and controls, such as bootlegger, hoax and chutzpah, and sells t-shirts and other merchandise through what the Web site calls its "stealth mall."
He is currently in a legal dispute with Sony's Columbia Pictures unit over a film that opens late this month. It is about elite Navy pilots and titled - what else? - "Stealth."
Mr. Stoller said he first registered "stealth" as a trademark in 1985 to cover an array of sporting goods. But in recent years, "stealth" has become widely used in marketing and branding circles to bestow a sense of the subliminal or the subversive or to convey an aura of lurking power.
Companies including the retailer Kmart and the consumer electronics maker JVC have stumbled into Mr. Stoller's territory and have removed "stealth" from their Web sites after hearing from him. Another electronics maker, Panasonic, omitted the word from a product called the "stealth wired remote zoom/pause control" after receiving one of Mr. Stoller's letters.
"If you can solve problems without going to court you're better off," said Russell J. Rotter, a lawyer for Panasonic, a division of Matsushita.
The best-known stealth brand may be the military's B2 stealth bomber, whose main contractor, Northrop Grumman, has fought Mr. Stoller to something of standoff. In 2001, the company paid Mr. Stoller $10 and agreed to abandon its trademark applications to use "stealth bomber" in spinoff products like model airplanes and video games. In return, Mr. Stoller agreed not to oppose Northrop's use of "stealth" in aircraft or defense equipment.
"We resolved it in a way that achieved our business purposes without in any way agreeing that Mr. Stoller's assertions were correct," said Tom Henson, a Northrop Grumman spokesman.
Trademark owners can obtain the right to use a word for commercial purposes and then to prevent others from seeking to use the same word for similar commercial purposes. For instance, the Delta Faucet Company, which has trademarked "Delta," could prevent another faucet company from adopting the name. But it cannot object to Delta Airlines because the two companies' products are not likely to be confused with one another.
A search of United States Patent and Trademark Office records found that Mr. Stoller and companies that share a Chicago post office box with him - Central Mfg., Stealth Industries, and S. Industries - hold at least two dozen registered trademarks for "stealth," covering such diverse products and services as crossbows, pool cues and insurance consultations.
Mr. Stoller said that he also held and administered as many as two dozen other "stealth" trademarks, and insisted that his close association with the word gave him special rights.
"We're entitled to own it with all goods and services," he said. "We were there first."
Some companies do recognize his rights to some uses of the word. Easton Spo
"The newly born animals are then whisked off for a quick run through a giant baking oven." --heard on Food Network
just so you know guys, i exclusively own the rights to *all uses* of the letter s (as used to make words plural), so cut it out, ok!
Stealth! Stealth! Stealth! Stealth! Stealth! Stealth! Stealth! Stealth! Stealth! Stealth! Stealth! Stealth! Stealth! Stealth! Stealth! Stealth! Stealth! Stealth! Stealth! Stealth! Stealth!
---
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is it that bad seein a hot chick again? if i see a hot chick walkin down the hall i dont say "repost"
how can he get the rights for a word that is in PUBLIC DOMAIN? Could anyone kill this guy please?
You see? Patent trolls, legal trolls, almost all of them are small: either one person, or a small company. We keep whining about the evil megacorps squashing everyone with patents while the real danger comes from these small entities.
This sig does not contain any SCO code.
What's terrifying is that he's gotten as far as he has.
Not really, I'd just have to say that he's been very furtive and sneaky about it, indeed, he's acted quite surreptitiously about the whole thing.
I didn't think you could. Otherwise you'd have people patenting words like "the" and "it" and we'd all be screwed over.
if he can get that trainwreck of a movie shutdown before inflicting itself on the world, I'm all for it!
I just copyrighted, trademarked and patented the word "The"(c)(tm) (both pronunciations) along with a whole host of definite and indefinite articles. I will be vigorously pursuing everyone using "The"(c)(tm) in books, film and sound recordings. Unless you license "The"(c)(tm) at the low, low price of $0.01 per usage, I will send the(c)(tm) RIAA, MPAA and the(c)(tm) NLAKC (Nazi Librarian Association of Knuckle Crackers) to hound each and everyone of you. And don't let me catch you using Peer to Peer technology to distribute "The"(c)(tm). Recent Supreme Court rulings will allow me to go after such tecnologies as the(c)(tm) keyboard, CRTs and web browsers (you are in my sights "The"(c)(tm) abuser, Bill Gates).
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
(From TFA) In 2002, the Illinois attorney general sued Leo Stoller after he used a Web site to solicit donations illegally on behalf of victims of the destruction of the World Trade Center.
No, this guy's not a total fucking scumbag...
for stuff like this.
Someone who's this greedy, self-centered and determined to make a mess of everyone's life, liberty and property for his own advancement would discretely get his ass kicked one day on his way home from work. Seriously, the courts are too civilized of a way of dealing with things like this sometimes. Not that I'd recommend doing it to him, but there was a long period in our history where being this much of a troll got your ass tore up by a few "concerned citizens" for wasting tax payers' money with frivilous cases that were all about greed and nothing about justice.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
I'm gonna trademark me the word "terrorist". That ought to make me a mint!
The most telling sentence in the article:
For all his time in federal courtrooms - Mr. Stoller says his companies have been in court 60 times - there is no record within the Lexis database of a federal court decision on "stealth" in his favor.
In other words, the man is a litigious idiot. The fact that he's occasionally managed to get people to license from him says more about the fact that people are terrified of lawsuits than that the law itself is unfair.
People are terrified of the law. I know I am; at any moment I could be sued and even if I win, it'll cost me thousands, with no way to recapture it. (And before a bunch of non-lawyers start demanding "loser pays", remember that "loser pays" just introduces other unfairnesses when the poor can't sue the rich.)
If programmers ran the world, the law would be clear, concise, and unambiguous. Or at least that's what they'd like to think. Anybody who's actually studied law knows that actual human interactions are full of corner cases, and ass-coverings easily outweigh the meat of most contracts.
If there were no litigious idiots, the law would be a lot simpler. Just like email would be lovely if there weren't a mountain of fools who think that "free" means "mine mine mine". Sadly, neither is the case. The courts are another commons, like email, and this jackass is ensuring that no commons it without its tragedy.
Fucktard.
Stealth has been a word used since the time of Shakespeare. How the heck does someone get to trademark a frickin' word?
Sadly, I am not sure if this should be modded funny or insightful.
Yeah, but here's trademark law for you, over here.
Information wants to be free.
Entertainment wants to be paid.
You just want to be cheap.
...is a bigger asshole than goatse.
I saw the letter 'E' up for sale on eBay last week - wouldn't that make his use of the word stealth illegal? Anyone know who bought it?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
... I'm the owner of PenIsland.com (Get your free pen from us) and I've received a few legal threats from several homosexually-oriented pornography websites (the url's of which I am not of liberty to disclose). This is an outrage, clearly all I am trying to do is provide the world with a service of free pens.
(In case you didn't realise, I don't own the domain and this post was a joke >.>)
Let the commencement BEGINULATE!
Just my opinion.
Who, exactly, thought that things had already gotten as absurd as they could get? Are you... new here?
...I heard that someone registered the word "gay". No, really. I mean it. Serious.
But anyway, this guy is a fucktard.
Not only has he gone head to head with Northrop Grumman, he has pursued it vigorously in the courts and has even managed to shut down "stealthisemail.com" (Steal This Email.com) because the URL coincidentally contains the word "stealth".
What the article actually says about "Stealthisemail.com" is that Mr. Stroller sent an e-mail to the website telling them to shut it down. Then the article says about InterActivist Network (who runs stealthisemail.com):
Eric Goldhagen, a member of the InterActivist Network, said that members of his group planned to talk to lawyers and others who have received letters from Mr. Stoller to discuss ways to deal with his "stealth" claims. "The fact that somebody, just by claiming to own a word, can intimidate large companies and powerful law firms shows the damage, to an extent, is already done," he said. "If people like Stoller are allowed to get away with this unchallenged, there could be ripple effects to every form of public mass media."
which if you look closely seems to imply to me that they have not taken it to court yet, therefore have not been forced to shutdown. This is easily verified by going to the actual website which is still up.
Though I do agree with the general sentiment of the submitter that this whole thing is ridiculous. -Patrick
We all know that this kind of guy and this kind of suit is getting way out of hand. Can we file a class action suit against him and his type of cretin? On behalf of all the consumers who have sufered with higher prices and less competition?
Seriously, what are the odds that someone can? The problem is that everyone knows that this is absurd, but none of the companies sued will go up to bat because they're far too woried about losing hundreds of millions of dollars in a judgement. If it were class action, WE, the halfway clued-in citizens of this world, could go on the attack, with NO fear that we'll be put out of business if we lose.
Maybe this kind of thing would teach all these intellectual property hounds to think twice before forming a business that does nothing else than "asset" patents and trademarks they've snatched up off others in a wave of speculation.
IANAL but I sure wih I were one right now.
www.eissq.com/BandP.html Ball and Plate System. Amuse your friends. Crush your enemies.
/me ads his company to my list of companies I'll never buy from for any reason. From the numerous accounts I've heard hes been bullying businesses with his "Trademark" of a WORD.
ITS A WORD, you don't get exclusive rights over every use of it. No trademark will get coverage of that word over every subject.
And see a search result to leo.stoller.has-a-small-penis.com, do not click it. It's worse than goatse.
I read the article and I just sat here staring at my monitor. I almost *ALMOST* cried. Don't worry, I'm still a man, not a tear was shed.
I henceforth trademark the words "Slash" and "Dot" as well as any associated symbols (such as "/" "\" and ".")
Enjoy!
So Leo Stoller 1985 array of "stealth" brand sporting goods isn't the same product as Sony's Columbia Picture's major motion picture release of a similar name? Could somebody please explain this to me? Because I really did think they were the same thing. But I guess I was wrong.
you haven't heard of my company:
Thomas Hegemonical Enterprises
We have many different product lines in a wide variety of products, and as such own the trademark on "the", which we intend to enforce with extreme prejudice. All Slashdot posters please refrain from use of the definate article, or I'll send you a cease-and-desist letter.
Argh! My eyes! My retinas are *bleeding*!
...
I wonder if he owns the trademark to utterly craptacular web design?
And some of the words?
Renaissance
Name of a period in history. A common word.
Stradivarius
Surname of a family of violin makers. Can you trademark someone else's name? And really expect them to licence it back from you?
Tirade
Hmm... I feel like going on one right now...
This guy is a total and utter bastard (is that one of his?) and his trademarking of words *and then going after people in unrelated industries* is even less convincing as a business tactic than anything SCO ever came up with.
Why Northrop Grumman caved in, I'll never know. They should have nailed his arse to the court documents and filed it under 'F' for
Hope it's good--it has a great geek premise. Of course we geeks will root for the machines and may end up on the losing end. But still--cool!!!
Transcend Humanity. Please.
What else could account for his major asshole-ry.
I prefer to pronounce it ass-holery. The way you have it (asshole-ry = asshole ree?) is more difficult to pronounce, I find. Of course that's just a matter of personal preference. But then what isn't these days? After all, we've got people who prefer eating plain bread to bread with butter. My goodness! In any case, I wish you and yours a fine evening.
Once the word lands in the dictionary as a non-slang, uncapitalized word, it should lose all trademark value...
Viable Slashdot alternatives: https://pipedot.org/ and http://soylentnews.org/
Yeah and now mod this reply as off topic - (redundant maybe I'll buy that) - still a waste of mod points
This message was brought to you by "Lack of Sleep."
Some idiot claimed to have a patent on the microprocessor long before anyone else took a patent out and he was suing everyone in sight. The funny thing about his patent application that it includes only football play diagrams. I never heard what happened to the idiot or how far he got in collecting money.
I see that Diamond still has their line of "Stealth" video cards. http://www.diamondmm.com/stealth.php I'm trying to find what year these cards initially launched.
.. while it's still available.
This is a VERY good thing. By showing the worst aspects fo the law to the public, there is a larger chance of it getting repealed
If it was McDonalds or Disney claiming this, I'd be worried. This guy though? He'll get shut down when he runs into Nintendo of America for releasing F117a Stealth Fighter on the NES.
Yes, other "famous marks" owned by this outfit are "Sentra" (someone better tell Nissan to pony up some dough) and "Stradivarius".
"Stradivarius" IS indeed a trademark - but not belonging to this guy. The Vincent Bach Corporation has been using "Stradivarius" for its top-of-the-line trumpets and trombones since the 1930s.
I'm waiting for him to sue some nine year old over his alleged trademark of "tree house"!
what "squatting" means without "cyber". Now I know. :(
My new business model:
1. Register trademark for cool words in all industries
2. wait for someone actually develops product that can be described using the word
3. wait more so the "damage" becomes extensive
4. file lawsuit
5. Profit!!!
managed to shut down "stealthisemail.com" (Steal This Email.com) because the URL coincidentally contains the word "stealth".
I had an acquaintance who worked at a company called Via Grafix in Pryor, OK. The company has been around at least since early nineties. Their website is viagrafix.com. He complained to me that they would get all this email about people asking about viagra. He said those people thought it said ViagraFix not ViaGrafix. I guess it was lucky they got the domain long before viagra came along.
They made a piece of software called DesignCAD, which is a stupid name, because CAD means Computer Aided Design.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
Oddly enough, I had a run in with this guy last year, and almost submited a story about it.
Ok, so my friend and I bought this domain, stealthisidea.com - as in Steal This Idea, and then never did anything with it.
Last summer, we get a packet, 1 inch thick, telling us we're in violation if his trademark on stealth, and that we were to cease all operations imediatly, and hand over the domain, and be prepared to pay damages.
Thinking this guy was just mistaken, I called him to clear up the matter. From moment 1 he was rude and abusive on the phone, demanding we meet his demands. After explaining the situation, he seemed to loose all grip with reality. He said we were violating his rights. He said he would have the police seize our computers and shut us down, all sorts of over the top crap. He took a very forceful tone, and quite frankly pissed me off. I told him in no uncertain terms that it was inappropriate to make those threats, and he just starting shouting loudly over me...
After the phone call, I dug into my records. I'd signed up for some pay-per-month legal service, including the added protection for my business, and yet had never used it. After finding the contact info, I got ahold of 'my lawyer' (actually just a lawyer at the firm asigned to my account) and explained the situation. He had me fax over a copy of the complaint.
In conversations with the lawyer, he agreed it was a frivilous complaint. You can walk into any hobby store and see models on the shelf for stealth airplanes, no TM symbol to be found next to the word stealth, let alone on the websites of companies that make these planes.
He spoke with the gentleman (if you can call him that), and asked for the registration numbers of the marks in question - none were ever produced. He told the gentleman that if he got a lawyer to bring a suit agianst us for such a rediculous claim, that he'd request sanctions against that lawyer.
We never heard from the guy again.
In the original packet were photocopies of letters to various companies, including JVC, asking them to cease production of various products with Stealth in the name.
I don't know if this guy actualy owns these marks (we never did get proof, but the fact that I produced a lawyer so fast may have been a deterent), but I do know he is an agressive, rude, and harassing individual.
The whole thing made me want to go trademark the common term 'sneak' as an alternative - after all, if someone (supposedly) let him register stealth, sneak should be just as valid.
man is machine
Stealth! Ooh. I said stealth. Oh! I said it again! Oh dear.
Who the heck was the idiot who gave this guy the rights to a common word in the English language that's been used for well over a hundred years.
I don't care if it's a "product name" he's trademarked. Use in any other format that is not his product IS.OUR.RIGHT.
Time to reform trademark law.
"Love is like pi - natural, irrational, and very important." (Lisa Hoffman)
I mean, if SCO can get away with 'producing' litigation for money, why not this guy? Though, I'll admit, picking on Linux/FLOSS is a far cry from picking on the rest of the world
Lets see how much his trademark protects him from my super stealth ninja stealth strike force of stealthfully stealthy doom.
Seriously, it is stuff like this that make America useless. Sometimes, the lawyer speak needs to end and the playground speak has to start: The closest playground analogy would be Stoller as the whiny spoilt kid complaining that it was his kick ball because he dibsed it in september, so no one can now play kick ball ever again. That kid is going to get his butt reeducated with some foot action.
Don't get me wrong - I think the laws are great. I just think that there should be some way of telling idiots like Stoller to shove it.
www.olin.edu
If you're curious and want to know about other "stealth" trademarks, head over to the USPTO database at: http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/gate.exe?f=search&state =embs7e.1.1 and use "stealth[bi] & `RN > 0 & live[ld]" as your search term. You'll pull up lots of live (i.e. enforceable) trademarks still in use using the word "stealth."
If nothing else, this guy is trying to make a fast buck by playing fast and loose with the trademark laws.
i'm just going to beat everyone to the english namespace rush and patent the word "patent", and then patent the business methodology of the process called "patenting"
all your ip are belong to me
seriously, how absurd does ip law get?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
laws write you!
Well, maybe not, but just think what the world would be like if it was written by the programmer who invented clippy.
You go sit down and start to write a letter...
This guy needs a good swift kick in the balls.
Seriously.
we have our own way to beat the snot outa this scum-bag. Just click here to drive his server costs threw the roof.
I hearbye anonounce the intention of me, one lowly *Halvy* of SlashDot, to herebuy lay total and unequivering claim and control to all of the words not already patented or copywrited in the universe...
Ahhhhhnd, ass do also, do lay claim to all words not yet invented, modified or not, whether in word, thought or deed, dreams ...
From hensforth this day of our..
I will gladly loose all of life's battles.. in order to win the war..
but it looks like a troll got hold of some mod points and is modding random comments as redundant.
The story should contain another link to the guy's site so we could slashdot the asshole. http://www.rentamark.com/
Four roommates. No microwave. You do the math.
[adam@adam ~]$ whois leostoller.com
Domain Name: LEOSTOLLER.COM
Registrar: REGISTER.COM, INC.
Whois Server: whois.register.com
Referral URL: http://www.register.com/
Name Server: NS1.ONR.COM
Name Server: NS2.ONR.COM
Status: ACTIVE
Updated Date: 16-feb-2005
Creation Date: 04-jul-2003
Expiration Date: 04-jul-2006
Organization:
Tom McKay
Tom McKay
PO Box 201990
Austin, TX 78720
US
Phone: 512-784-9051
Fax..: 512-219-7724
Email: ibmfo@yahoo.com
Registrar Name....: Register.com
Registrar Whois...: whois.register.com
Registrar Homepage: http://www.register.com/
Domain Name: LEOSTOLLER.COM
Created on..............: Fri, Jul 04, 2003
Expires on..............: Tue, Jul 04, 2006
Record last updated on..: Wed, Feb 16, 2005
The summary is wrong. He only sent a C&D letter to stealthisemail.com The site is quite operational...
I liked the bit about Northrop Grummond paying him $10 to go away.
BTW, IANAL, but I believe there is such a thing in trademark law as prior commercial use. And I think it would be very difficult to trademark a common English word and then sue everyone who uses it in any commercial context which is what he is doing.
I mean, that would be like Microsoft suing Windex because they make a cleaner for windows or Apple suing a bakery because they make apple strudels....
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
He claims to own the rights to words such as treehouse and even words such as walk and smile! and claims to own the rights to many phrases including "Thank You" Heres a list of words he claims to own: http://rentamark.com/Wordmarks/wordmarks.html And a list of phrases: http://rentamark.com/e-marks/A-D/a-d.html http://rentamark.com/e-marks/E-I/e-i.html http://rentamark.com/e-marks/J-O/j-o.html http://rentamark.com/e-marks/P-S/p-s.html http://rentamark.com/e-marks/T-Z/t-z.html Quite a few movie titles are included. For example: Terminator and Sahara ".com" is even claimed to be trademarked. Its like they picked a list ofwords randomly from a dictionary.
hope he takes down enuf biggies to make someone fix the system.
There are indeed some really messed up mods out there.
Maybe, but your post sucked anyway. It was an obvious non funny attempt at the karma whoring.
A.) "Terminator" is on that list. I hear someone in the California executive branch might have something to say about that.
B.) The logos are the ugliest things I've ever seen (goatse included), and half of them don't even load.
C.) Is "renting" your trademarks out actually a legitimate business strategy?
I'm actually not sure that's quite what goes on. If I'm understanding this correctly, people pay $300 a year so that RentAMark.com can "proclaiming to the world" that the phrase "tree house" "is famous, well known, in use and not abandoned."
________________________________________________
suwain_2
All prior art aside, I thought you could only "license" or "defend" your trademark if a rival company decided to market things in your area or business but as far as I see it, he's suing/threatening anyone using the word "stealth" in any context. I haven't seen his company make any military bombers lately, or movie bombs for that matter. Someone tell me I'm not being outrageous in my claims )even though IANAL)... oh wait. -TX297
His logos are genius. Simply put, the most profound use of the pixel since Pong. The colors are bold, never sassy, bright and in your face. The word "Sentra" becomes more than mere syllables or phonemes: it becomes a visual orgasm!
Take a look at his catalog of fabulous tradmarks right here. Some high quality stuff here, folks!
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
no joke. I guess they can do it because they are hiding behind the 'moderator curtain'
I could go around sueing everyone for everything, but ya know if ya bother the wrong person, you might end up with a bad case of lead poisoning.
I may not be rich, but I don't think anyone wants me dead.
From Rentamark.com's Cease & Desist Section:
There are no well-known trademarks, service marks, trade names and/or domain names that have not already been adopted by some other company first; as in the case at bar. In the same manner that there is not any real property in the 21st Century that can be acquired for free or homesteaded. There is no free well-known intellectual property left in the 21st Century. No free rides!
I don't even know where to begin with this guy...
If you call paying $20M to Lindows/Linspire in a settlement "winning".
That may have happened in the United States, but Microsoft got a much more favorable result out of the courts in Belgium, Netherland(s), and Luxemb(o)urg.
I'm not going to say for what, but I've received a letter from this fuckwad myself as a small business owner attempting to sell a product using the word "stealth" as only part of the product name. People who get by in life litigating (or just threatening litigation) with no basis are IMHO absolute scum. The state of IP in this country is such that almost any product offering is going to be subject to some sort of IP infraction - it's almost a necessity to either stay under the radar or make enough money to afford defending against meritless cases such as this.
Apple was rather careful from the outset to inform everyone that it should be called "Mac OS 9" and not "OS 9".
Microware's point of view was that they didn't need a win, just needed a legal basis to show that they hadn't abandond their trademark.
Essentially, the ruling was exactly that, and, IIRC, left the door open to revisit the issue if Apple were to drop the "Mac" part or attempt to use Mac OS 9 to enter the real-time domain.
Well, for one, it wasn't very stealthy.
"Stealth Stealth Stealth"
It was right there, clear as day.
Information wants to be free.
Entertainment wants to be paid.
You just want to be cheap.
that we rename this site StealthDot, to protest this moron's idiotic claims.
'Torrent' is one-a-dem.
That's it! I'm going to trademark the following words:
;)
'copyright', 'patent', 'application', 'for', 'file', 'specification', 'US patent', 'office', 'trademark', 'law', and every other word used to fill out and contained on the patent and trademark filing forms. (this post obviously being the first and only ever use of these words
Hopefully I can sue companies the moment they apply for using my newly trademarked words and stop this madness.
Stealth, stealth, stealth, stealth, stealth, stealth, stealth, stealth, beans, and stealth.
And while I'm at it, I might as well say something that gets me around the lameness filter. I believe this ought to suffice.
The church of scientology trademarked the word "freedom" in several languages.
So why don't they sue president Bush for renaming french fries as "freedom fries"??? Oh those laws are just for the powerful to squash the non-powerful. Never mind any other combo.
See how ridiculous this gets? If we don't watch it software patents, dictionnary word trademarks, and patents over *business plans* will poison normal communication over the 'net.
I can still say 'net without being arrested by the man, right?
Can I sue every other copyright owner over the word "copyright" since for some reason I trademarked it??
Microsoft is pure dog-ma. FreeBSD is pure cat-ma.
can this guy's name be trademarked?
FreeBSD for the impatient.
I should claim I own oxygen and that everyone is stealing from me by inhaling.
I caught the Mountain Wumpus! He gave me his treasure chest ($100) to let him go free again.
I want to submit a patent on farting. This way, no one can fart unless I say so. I demand $0.01 per fart per person throughout any country that is stupid enough to grant me this patent. And $1,000,000.00 per fart by those that give me the patent
...use the system to destroy itself.
really, we need lots more idiots like this. the USPTO system needs to be ground to a screeching halt, tied up in endless frivolous lawsuits like this.
only then will legislators get motivated enough to fix the system.
In one of Heinline's later future histories they refer to 'the day they shot all the lawyers.'
Add spammers and I'm game - How does August 6th work for everybody?
sign me,
Anonymous yet well armed Coward
It's safe to say he's a fucking sumbag. As the article noted, the purpose of a trademark is to prevent consumer confusion. So if I created Sycraft Amplifiers you cannot also go create Sycraft Amplifiers, that are much cheaper and inferior quality, and snag consumers with brand confusion.
I mean the guy sued Northrop for fuck sake. Nobody is going to confuse a B-2 Stealth bomber with anything this retard could make. He lacks the means to make military stealth aircraft, and the B-2 was first anyhow.
It's pretty clear this guy is just a scumbag who wants to leech money while doning nothing of value. I'm quite sure every dollar he collected for "charity" would have gone right in to his pocket.
Hey! -- that NASA probe hit that comet thing.
You can't even name software using a word that sounds like Windows! Copyrighting the English language is foolish but not without precedent.
What has been happening with Firefox.. err Firebird.. err Pheonix.. err.. That damned new web browser from Mozilla.
How long before more of these "Stealth" (tm) words are trademarked? Should it be allowable to trademark dictionary words? I mean come on, it's implying ownership to a word, something that we need in language to describe something. Sure, other words can be used, but what if we're trying to rhyme or something?
By the way, I love the rediculous improbable slashdot stories.
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
... for having stealth in the title of a discussion topic?
cross reference
Don't you hate meta-sigs?
I guess Hideo Kojima of Konami studios could also get sued by this bitch, over the Metal Gear Solid series. The word Stealth is used almost everywhere.
This guy better not push it, or else the united states army is going to take him for a long long massage... and then a very soothing swimming lesson in the ocean. Don't the U.S. and the U.K. Army put the word stealth on almost anything new they make?
Heh. I just called the phone number (773-283-3880) posted prominently throughout the website of this guy's "agency". Not surprisingly, his voice mailbox is full :-)
That's quite a Chicago accent he's got there though...
Anecdotal evidence! I'm sold!
Rentamark is engaged in full-blown legal warfare to protect its intellectual property. Currently there are no well-known trademarks available. Every one of Rentamark's famous trademarks are being infringed and/or third parties are attempting to register.
Rentamark is engaged in a full blown legal warfare to protect its famous trademarks from infringers. Rentamark is seeking former prosecutors, Judges, TTAB staff members, CIA, FBI and other individuals with a legal and/or law enforcement background to assist Rentamark in its policing of its famous trademarks.
Rentamark is especially interested in attorneys, commissioners or former judges who have had previous experience on state Attorney Disciplinary Commissions who are expert in dealing with attorney disciplinary issues in order to file Attorney Disciplinary Complaints against opposing counsel that may violate the state Professional Code of Responsibility while attempting to prosecute a fraudulent trademark application, Opposition, Petition to Cancel and/or District Court Proceeding. Please send your resume to jobs@rentamark.com
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
We are safe , its actually um Bitt-orrent um cough.
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
A suggestion would be to make it manditory for the loser of a nuisance lawsuit to have to pay all attorney and court costs... or at least an option the judge can apply if he/she sees fit (and make the judge show cause why it didn't apply if they don't impose it). Then a putz like this guy will think twice before he brings a bullshit lawsuit. He'll think about how much he would be paying with all the court costs and attorney's fees when he loses. And from the sounds of it (i.e. the number of judges who threw out his various cases and their comments...), he would have run out of money a long time ago.
Anyway, if something like this were in place, I think you would see a lot less of these kinds of cases. Business would flow a lot more smoothly, and the courts would get a break from going over these ridiculous cases. Mind you, the trial lawyers would probably throw a fit if you brought something like this in, in the 'States. Some of them might actually be forced to play tennis with their tennis shoes, instead of chasing ambulances. ;-)
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
He doesn't seem to be going after open source software yet. Maybe he figures that we can't afford to pay him off. My Nmap (Stealth) Security Scanner comes up as result #4 in a Google search for "stealth", higher than the upcoming movie and some other sites he has sued/threatened. Yet I haven't received anything. Not that I feel disappointed and left out or anything ...
;)
-Fyodor (who is now resuming the search for SCO products or marketing messages talking about Stealth
A quick google of 'Leo Stoller' came up with these random links. The first lists the federal Lexus database entries. Seems he is trying to trademark works like "racket" and "tennis". http://www.biglist.com/lists/lists.inta.org/tmtopi cs/archives/0404/msg00092.html
What the hay...rather than filter though all these links myself. Feel free to look at the google search yourself.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Leo+Stoller
"Does your computer have IP on it?"
Going to court is expensive. Even if it's short and you win, it's still expensive. That's why the RIAA use lawsuit threats all the time now. Their evidence is pretty shaky when you get right down to it, and if it was cheap peopel would go to court over it but as is you'll spend more on a lawyer even if you win than they want up front.
So Northrop is only really concerned about their actual aircraft. The money they make from any sort of game licensing is shit compared to the actual money on the aircraft. Who knows if they can even charge it, being it's taxpayer money going for the planes? At any rate, so long as they can call the actual aircraft stealth, they are happy. Well, if $10 and a smile makes this asshole go away, great. No reason to go and spend tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in court fighting it, espically since there's always the chance, no matter how remote, you could lose.
As to your other questions: Yes the jet is prior art (not the B-2, but the F-117A, deployed 1982), and the USPTO is about as fucked up as it could possibly be.
I think he need to tell him about the ninja's gang because the use of the term of stealth technique in there marketing campaign
When he sue the ninja's....
Well it must exist a chine saying about "never sue ninja's"
"Use cases are fairy tales..." I. S. 2005
Duh.
I'm glad I don't subscribe to NYTimes and therefore cannot verify the Fine Article...
Of course, this guy might own a heck of a lot of trademarks...
“Our opponent is an alien starship packed with nuclear bombs. We have a protractor.” — Neal Stepnenso
SHUT UP!
Bloody vikings.
There they were, sitting in the van with all those dials, and the cat was dead. -V. Marchetti, CIA
Anyone can get pretty far, because everyone is allowed the right to give their argument, and if you have enough money you could appeal any ridiculous plight. So I do not think it is suprising. I just hope he realises that I have international trademarks on the word STEAL so I want 83.33% of all his earnings. (think about it). I just hope some TEA merchant doesn't try and take a piece of my well thought out pie.
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
I wonder what Nissan would say about his rendition of "Sentra" (same page). It's clearly an invented word, and not found in the dictionary.
--
BMO
According to the USPTO, Leo's stealth trademark #74724050 was considered dead and unenforceable after April, 1999.
I believe that this http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=2 cq9aq.5.2 is the trademark that this guy holds, and it seems to cover an extremely large array of products and services.
Special event planning, training services in the field of trademark law, litigation and trademark licensing; amusement arcades, amusement parks featuring amusement rides and attractions, animal training, arranging and conducting education conferences, arranging ticket reservations for athletic competitions, shows and other entertainment events, educational testing, modeling for artists, motion picture theatres, movie studios, multi-media entertainment software for production services; music production services; news analysis and features distribution; news reporting services; officiating at sports contests; organizing community sporting and cultural events; photography services, physical fitness consultation, planetariums, portrait photography; preparing subtitles for movies and live theatrical events; production and distribution radio, television commercials and motion pictures, production of radio and television programs and film studies; providing a computer game that may be accessed network wide by network users, providing continuing legal education courses and fitness and exercise facilities; providing information on-line relating to computer games and computer enhancements for games, providing news in the nature of current events reporting and information in the field of employment training; providing recognition and incentives by the way of awards to demonstrate excellence in the fields of law, medicine, sports, computer hardware, accounting, nursing and secretaries; publication of journals; rental of artwork, rental of computer game programs, rental of films, rental of golf equipment, rental of photographic equipment, rental of video games and rolling skating rinks
I know how to goad the normally corporate asskissing stooges in DC to do something to fix this little mess they spawned from their loins from their whoring around. I'm going to trademark "Democrat" and "Republican" as well as the elephant and donkey symbols. Then I'm going to sue as many so called partisans as possible. ;P
But, they'll probably just send me to Gitmo for my trouble... Or, if I really tick them off, I'll be "rendered" to Uzbekistan where they can boil me alive.
Any sufficiently advanced influence is indistinguishable from control.
I wanna throw this guy off.
:)
On the other hand... since he's been harassing Northrup-Grumann, d'ya suppose that a test warhead might accidently fall on his business? One can hope... And since it's 7/4, no one will notice one more explosion
Ah, and others ask what the "smash head here" on my mousepad is for...
Actually, stealthisemail.com was not shut down as the article says. They actually stood up to him and refused to shut down.
:D
BTW, if Leo Stoller is reading this...
Stealth Stealth Stealth Stealth Stealth Stealth Stealth Stealth Stealth Stealth Stealth Stealth Stealth Stealth Stealth Stealth Stealth Stealth
I'm low on toilet paper and could use a few inch thick packets of cease and desist letters.
http://www.i8-d.com/stealth.html
I8-D
I liked best the picture of a koala with a text "Bear in mind".
I think it's time that the United States codified a broad, sweeping appeal to "common sense" in federal law that judges at all levels could/can employ at their own discretion, like some other nations have done. To my eye, a situation like this one would be an ideal use of the law.
Yes, a codified basis in "common sense" increases the potential for judicial abuse in some cases, or for rulings that are controversial and can't be reduced to a single important point in case law, but judges can be removed and decisions can ultimately be overturned if too many others deem them inappropriate, and at this point in the historical narrative, it seems that we've veered so far into legislation and litigation that for every one of the most simple decisions that need to be made in life by the most unimportant of parties, an army of layers is needed, to descend into endless minutiae and discern the multiple various and sundry legal ramifications.
It's truly sad that "you can't even take a crap without first consulting a lawyer" is no longer biting sarcasm but is rather informed legal advice.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
A few years ago, I trademarked the word 'Fucktard'. Clearly this guy is infringing on my legal rights by continually and wantonly being a Fucktard Royale with Cheese.
Among the hundred plus on his list are...
n ews
amazon
capuccino
download
hacker
keyboard
online
poker
smart
technology
zesty
I did a TESS search for Stealth with owner Stoller and he does indeed seem to have registered it, but it looks like it was in connection with some sporting goods company he was involved with in 1985. However, searches for several other words on the above list all came up with zip.
It's a shame that people with a history of making groundless legal threats can't be prosecuted like the common vandals they are. I see Stoller's actions as no different from slashing tires or throwing rocks through people's windows.
"-1, missed the joke" mod.
http://rentamark.com/
And remember to hold down the "Shift" key when you hit "refresh"
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
It's not OK. It's not stealing, or theft or any other verb like that ; those are emotive words that also don't acurately reflect what has happened.
What has happened is copyright infringment ; an unlawful act.
The NY Times creates this content, it has to pay a writer, support a webserver, pay bandwidth bills.
In return, for creating this content for u to read, all they ask is that u look at some ads.
I think that's a reasonable exchange, that I agreed to. If you don't think it's reasonable, then you shouldn't break the law to allow others to circumvent it.
Quick search for the word "Stealth" in USPTO shows 595 Hits, things from "Sprocket wheels and transmission systems for land vehicles, particularly sprocket wheels for motorcycle chains" to buletproof clothing, to aquarium heaters to "molecular biological tools" to clothing line named "CATIMINI" (which apparently translates as STEALTH)
Trademark has to apply to something specific and he clearly does not own all of them. While you can file a suit for any reason, does not mean you can win.
-Em
RelevantElephants: A Somatic WebComic...
it hasnt got much stealth in it...
I DONT LIKE STEALTH!
I'm against unmitigated douchebaggery just as much as the next slashdotter, so I'm going to suggest that someone should really trademark this guy's name.
Then, every time he serves someone with legal papers, the trademarkee can write a C&D filled with flowerly language to him because the real, trademarked Leo "The Marktard" Stoller would never be such a mean person.
Not only was it unfunny, but it wasn't even a trademark use of the word 'stealth'. OP has clearly failed to grasp the issue being discussed..
I clicked the link. Ugh, what's with all those wordart graphics that look like they were created on a Tandy 1000?
"Live as if you'll die tomorrow." Ridiculous. You could die later today.
now it's Stelth. So there.
---- "Excuse me. Where's the children's gun section?"
guess its time for us to come up with a GPL for words in the english language too
The guy claims to own "chutzpah" as well. What a putz.
you had me at #!
Among many other interesting antics, he trademarked the phrase "Freedom of Expression" . . .
i've read the articles and links posted and i can't believe what a jerk this guy is. it looks he just has way to much time on his hand is trying to squeeze every penny outta his trademark. those who don't want to fight will sucuumb to his demands or at least negotiate. others who know a bit of the law will just ignore him.
we should just register more stealthis______ domains and actually see this guy in action. i'm quite interested in seeing that 1" thick paperwork.
is there anyway to revoke someone's copyright if they abuse it?
HD Trailers
With that attitude, this guy could do the world a big favour.
He should register a patent on "being a jerk" and then sue anyone else who tried to be such a jerk.
It looks up to me.
Why do people on /. continue to think that it's OK to copy entire articles ?
There are a variety of reasons, but in this case, it's because most people don't want to go to the hassle of registering with the NY Times to view an article. Sure, you can go to bugmenot (like I did), but that's almost as much hassle as registering.
Yes, it's copyright infringement, but I think that the benefit it provides (more people RTFA, leading to better discussion) outweighs any harm the NY Times suffers.
They lose ad revenue, but they also don't have to pay for the bandwidth of thousands of slashdotters viewing the article on their servers. (Note that this will never happen, unless they remove their registration requirement.)
Unlawful? Yes. Immoral? Maybe, but so is tracking people's reading habits, which is the only reason I can think of for requiring "free" registration.
"The newly born animals are then whisked off for a quick run through a giant baking oven." --heard on Food Network
..the Aviation industry.
TurboJet, AirFrame, Aerospace, Stealth.
Reminds me of what happened in Australia to the word ugg. Ugg had for 30 years plus been used to describe sheep skin boots, or ugg boots.
:)
Along comes some American company, trademarks the name and stops people using it, and even forced a dictionary company to rewrite the definition of the word.
I'd like to trademark the word 'football' or 'baseball' and prevent anyone from using them unless they pay fees.
I can't understand how stuff like this happens, and how people can get away with it. Where are the sanity police when you need them?
Cheers.
it seems that his company owns the trademark for the word "torrent" Thanks for the post. Now I have a new list of words to try to use as often as I possibly can. Infact, we all need to use these words as often as possible.
"Does your computer have IP on it?"
If programmers ran the world, the law would be clear, concise, and unambiguous. Or at least that's what they'd like to think.
Interestingly enough, Godel's incompletness theorum should apply to legal affairs. The more laws you pass, and the more exact you make them, the more loopholes you open up, so a programmer couldn't actually do any better. The most complete law that could be written would be something like, 'Do onto others, as you would have them do to you', which is chock full of ambiguity. Even that one wouldn't work in actual practice, as those stupid Cristians have been demonstrating for the last two thousand years...
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
The guy's a Total Fag®
Columbia Pictures has brought a civil action in federal court in Chicago, seeking a declaratory judgment that its use of the title "Stealth" for a movie scheduled for release on July 29, 2005, does not infringe upon or dilute Leo Stoller's purported rights in the mark STEALTH. Columbia Pictures Indus., Inc. v. Stoller et al., Civil Action No. 05-C-2052 (N.D. Ill.).
"The Motion Picture 'Stealth,' starring Academy Award®-winner Jamie Foxx, Josh Lucas, Jessica Biel, and Sam Shephard, tells the fictional story of a top-secret military program involving a fully autonomous and very lethal prototype stealth fighter bomber that unexpectedly develops human-like consciousness."
Oh the irony
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
He also owns some other trademarks like ( http://www.rentamark.com/ ):
Annihilator, Ambush, Aerospace, Stradivarius, Intruder, Airframe, Torrent, Book Review, Free Speech...
And trademarking 800 year old words is totally moronic.
Here it is boys: hundreds upon hundreds of megabytes of DRM-protected readily-downloaded Lesbian Strapon porn. Anyone able to crack it?
From his rent-a-mark site: (probably infringing copyright by pasting):
Somewhere out there is a bullet with your company's name on it. Somewhere out there is a competitor, unknown to you, that is trading off your brand, building common law rights in your brand and waiting to ambush your company with a trademark infringement lawsuit. You can't dodge that bullet. You're going to have to shoot first. You're going to have to outsmart your competitor with a Rentamark Trademark Brand Checkup annually. This checkup will reveal these unknown competitors who are waiting to ambush your company with an Opposition, Petition to Cancel your Trademark and/or file a Trademark Infringement lawsuit against your company.
Then further down the page this caught my eye:
Remember your brand could be worth over $1,000,000 (one million dollars) and
your brand could be ailing or is being knocked off and needing repair.
You don't phrase "$1,000,000 (one million dollars)" like that unless you specifically mean that exact figure and are actually involved in a transaction. This guy is clearly on the same lines as a Nigerian scam and can safely be ignored. Yes he has been taking legal action but the makers of the stealth bomber can handle one little nut job im sure. Pitty about the smaller companies he has targetted, I hope they don't get footed with a big legal bill.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
I suppose he knows those fucktards that think they own the moon.
Someone please explain to me how someone replied to a flamebait comment and talked about pissing on someone and was modded insightful.
Oh, wait..
This is Slashdot.
Aero
Please stop hurting America -- Jon Stewart
After all, the best way to get a law repealed is to enforce it strictly. How better to illustrate the stupidity of IP laws and the loser-pays legal system than to be completely over the top like this?
How is this "immoral," especially given that the people being tracked are anonymous? All they're doing is learning that, say, people who read a lot of articles about tennis also tend to follow British politics, or that hardly anyone makes it through to the last page of Joe Reporter's economics stories. It doesn't carry the slightest possibility of hurting anyone.
I'm copyrighting the word 'the', all your money are belong to us.
TFA mentions that the military "paid Mr. Stroller $10 and agreed to abandon its trademark." Did they leave out the word "million"? It seemed hard to believe a large trademark case can be easily settled with only ten dollars.
yeah real terrifying, some lunatic is an idiot. so what.
Isn't there a German guy, a lawyer I believe, who is much worse than this guy, and sueing anything in sight? Anyone got information on him?
http://www.rentamark.com/sample/psb1.htm
He has about 100 common phrases done up as very cheap logos. I'm wondering if he's going to use these as the basis for lawsuits eventually.
There's gotta be a way to retaliate against this guy.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
Here's what I want to know.
If a psycho serial killer is goin to go around cutting people's heads off, why go after young beautiful women like they always do???
As long as you're a psychopath killer, go after some of these spammers who are wasting everyone's time and leave the girls alone. Just once I'd like to hear of the 'mind-your-manners massacers'.
Do a search for "Stoller, Leo" (in quotes) using TESS, and you will see all the garbage he has patents on... This warrants 17 results. "Leo Stoller" gives 14 others.
Nowhere near the hundreds he has listed on his website.
// Ziekke
Ooops, time for my de-lousing. Back in 5.
I'd better open a ticket on WoW suggesting that they change the name of my rogue's main ability to "sneaky stabbity death mode"
Is bittorrent supposed to be derivative of "bit torrent" or "bit to rent"? The latter seems more likely based on how it works.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
but there was no +1 flamebait.. only the -1 variety :(
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
On the rentamark.com web site is a link to "Americans for the Enforcement of Attorney Ethics" (which itself sounds like a bad joke, but anyway...).
>Why do people on /. continue to think that it's OK to copy entire articles ?
/., I'd like to agree with you. Using loaded words is a bad practice. Whats truely unfortunate is it seems you have forgot a lesson I believe most children are taught (generally by other children) - that being: mind your own business.
/. which nowadays seems to be becoming more and more dangerous (since thought crime and usage of the word stealth in any sort of business context I guess is against the law nowadays). Now that I think about it, I guess you are in the right, since we can't really use the word stealth if we are writing this from the Business Webs. Hmm.
> It's not OK. It's not stealing, or theft or any other verb like that ; those are emotive words that also don't acurately reflect what has happened.
> What has happened is copyright infringment ; an unlawful act.
Although its poor form on
Feel free to mod this down as flamebait, but did you ever stop for a second and think if you were actually on topic? The topic of discussion is the word 'stealth', not the NYT.
If you would of RTFA I'm sure you would realized this. I was greatly concerned about the article because its fairly common for me to think to myself as being in 'stealth mode' on
> I think that's a reasonable exchange, that I agreed to. If you don't think it's reasonable, then you shouldn't break the law to allow others to circumvent it.
I'm happy you agreed to it. What I'm more confused about is that by your statement, it sounds like as long as you agree with the exchange that its then okay to break the law. I think a firmer stance on the law part is in order.
Heck, while we are at it, lets just decree your beliefs as laws:
You shall believe the NYT's TOS is okay
You shall allow all advertising into your life
You shall not break the law (or I'll not mind my own business and whine about it)
You shall not allow others to circumvent the law, since this breaks rule #2..
Time to create stealthisstealth.com and let the lawsuits fly in!
The President should use his Executive Power to have Special Forces kill this scumbag, and anyone related to him.
Most /. troll messageboards advise wannabe trolls to copy the article text in full as it often gets modded up, giving some trolls enough karma to get mod points to abuse.
Really, article text should only be copied if the server is slowed down and should be posted anonymously. There is now a tradition here that people who post article text under their own name should be modded down.
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
There's a bugmenot extension for Mozilla that will save you the hassle. :) Do give it a try, it's nice.
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
I'm not sure about the word "stealth" but he does seem to have gone a fair way toward trademarking the word "wanker"..
Ever wonder why he hasn't threatened to sue Amazon despite the fact that there are over 250 titles containing the word stealth there? Well, the poor bastard works for Amazon, so you can understand why he spends his spare time going around and threatening to sue everyone else who in any way uses the word stealth. It's his way of blowing off steam, if it weren't for that he'd go postal and Bezos would get a new haircut and some of you people who still don't boycott Amazon would not get your books and DVDs.
SlealThisTrademark/StealthIsTradmark and use it to really wind up plank up.
Unlawful? Yes. Immoral? Maybe, but so is tracking people's reading habits, which is the only reason I can think of for requiring "free" registration.
Another reason I see is to limit traffic. A simple free registration can do wonders about that.
Looking at his word list at http://rentamark.com/Wordmarks/wordmarks.html, he appearantly owns .com, cyberspace, and wow.
Ironically, he skipped the word that I think he DOES deserve a copyright on: Smacktard.
In light of this new information, I annouce to slashdot, my new brand of sports gear and military planes: Stealth Bootlegger. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v235/henrysmith_ 1/hoax.bmp
I love reading stories like this. I also love it when a small company has a retarded patent on something so they can sue the shit out of every big company (Microsoft, HP, Apple, ...) The more people start pulling stunts like this and making it impossible for others to say, do, create anything, the sooner people will realize that the current patent en trademark laws need a revision.
I'm hoping someone gets a patent on electricity and trademark on every vowel by tomorrow.
Commonly known as TLAS Syndrome (Three Letter Acronym Syndrome Syndrome)...
"Windows: Built on NT Technology", is another one..
Stealth Assasins have been dispatched to your location.
You need a lot of Chutzpah to muss with the Assasins Guild and associated Yakuza, Ninja and Footpads of America.
If only I was evil, I would trademark the Backslash for web services and then sue the net and various unices - *sigh* cubicle dreams of evil *sigh*
Just like we should hate and deride all computer programmers just coz some of them behave like bastards and write viruses.
Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.
Parent is avoiding saying the worth 'Stealth'. :)
Does this guy really own anything but a bunch of really lame WordArt?
...and a stupid music company still claims rights over a fruit computer company...
As legal representative of the Cease & Desist Corporation and its owner, Mr Bernard Dickman, I must remind you that "cease and desist" is a legally registered trademark of said corporation and that your use of the term creates a serious danger of confusion of your company with said corporation in that their business operations are essentially identical to yours, that is, the badgering of companies large and small into paying money for the use of plain English words that have been trademarked. Kindly cease and desist (TM) immediately and we will forego any legal action against you and your company.
Thank you for your cooperation.
Emily Flywheel
Flywheel, Shyster, Flywheel and Camshaft, Attorneys at Law
"Is this Winkhorst a nova criminal?" "No just a technical sergeant wanted for interrogation."
Aquire his address and send him SPAM. Put him on EVERY list for SPAM possible. No mercy. Real postal SPAM.
Fork you all you forking forkers
We need an army of greedy, stupid, crooked IP shysters like this man.
The end of corporate IP hijacking will come not from 10 million file traders, or 10,000 pundits, or 1,000 crusaders, but from 100 Leo Stollers. Sanity will return to the debate at the moment people perceive things have gone too far. At this point, Mr. Stoller is leading the charge. But I'm sure someone out there can be more offensive, more greedy, more stupid, more agressive! This is America, after all. The sooner we find them, (and 98 more like them) the sooner this insanity will pass.
I've been doing a hard refresh of that page several times per minute for the last 10 minutes. I plan on continuing.
Web Design Tips
As I recall but cannot find a reference for, you get additional protections for made-up words. So it's a lot harder for you to form the Xerox Laundry Plaza than it is for you to form the Apple Laundry Plaza. I remember the protections on made-up words being a lot stronger, since no one's going to start using them by accident. (Well, it's not likely.)
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
In other words, the man is a litigious idiot.
He's a successful con artist, like Bill Warman (the screen protector guy -- google for '"Bill Warman" patent') and no doubt thousands of other blokes who have acquired some legal hook they can use to bully people into sending them money for fear of a lawsuit.
Seems to me that if he is renting them out, they are almost by definition "not famous". If no one can associate the trademark with a particular company or product, the scope of the trademark should be very strictly limited to how it was registered and how it is being used. If it isn't even being used for an actual product or service, then he should lose it entirely.
Not a chance.
Stupid businesses: all the had to do was find the etymology of the word "stealth" and throw it back into this seeming shyster's face:
stealth:
c.1250, "theft, action or practice of stealing," from O.E. *stæl, which is related to stelen (see steal), from P.Gmc. *stælitho (cf. O.N. stulr). Sense of "secret action" developed c.1300, but the word also retained its etymological sense into 18c. Got a boost as an adj. from stealth fighter, stealth bomber, radar-evading U.S. military aircraft, activated 1983. Stealthy is attested from 1605.
Surely the word predates any company and any claim a company could have on it. (Not even Beretta is as old as this word.)
Sure he's completely immoral, but he definitely knows how the trademark system REALLY works.
First, from the article it's clear that he puts the "stealth" mark on nearly everything, including air conditioners. That at the very least gives him a legal basis to sue.
Second, he's more than willing to settle for what would be considered nominal amount. While a few grand might be nothing to K-Mart, if he gets enough of them they add up quickly.
The fourth and last is that he's never actually WON a lawsuit! He's had this great settlement record even though he gets his butt kicked everything he enters a court room. That takes a lot of balls.
I'm not saying I like the guy, or even respect him. In fact, if I could get away with it, I'd ensure he got a slow and painful death. I'm just saying he knows all the flaws in our system and he's taking good advantage of them. And maybe if enough people start doing this, our system will change for the better.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
He also offers to license to you such phrases as: Adult Entertainment,Big Screen,Blue Collar, and Back Country.
Unlawful? NO.
FAIR USE.
That reminds me. I must remember to start my legal advice company simply called and. also known by the sign "&".
Okay now I get it. :)
..."stealth bombers"? I guess maybe he doesn't care since the military isn't (technically) a company?
Furry cows moo and decompress.
He does but so do two hundred other people own a trademark for something that contains the word stealth. The idiot doesn't realize that trademarks also involve the products used. He can only sue if the product name is the same. Hence the reason why the word has been trademarked in one form or another five hundred times. Also, the word sneaks is trademarked all ready. It's just a matter of people not knowing the law.
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
http://www.5fingre.com/5fingre/?p=40
Immoral? Maybe, but so is tracking people's reading habits,
Nonsense. I do it every day when I check my web stats. Which pages people have been to, what times of day they came in, roughly where in the world they came from, and where else on the web they were pointed at me.
You're reading their news articles, served from their web server - surely they have the right to look at who's reading what on their site?
http://www.autourlrefresher.com/
SLASHDOT HIM! NOW!
This guy has not won a single case. If he persisted, hire a private eye to dig up some dirt on the guy to get him off your back.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
I found this when I googled his name:- in-chicago-lawsuit-charge.html
i ctures-takes-on-leo-stoller.html
http://thettablog.blogspot.com/2005/04/defendants
There is a picture of his alleged office on that page too.
Also from the same site a post on the Columbia Pictures suit:
http://thettablog.blogspot.com/2005/05/columbia-p
The following qoute from the posting and the linked filing show that he hasn't been successful in enforcing his trademark like the NYT article leads you to believe.
Columbia's complaint includes a handy list of reported federal court cases involving Stoller and/or his companies. Columbia asserts that "No court in any reported opinion has ever found any infringement or dilution of any rights held by Stoller or his companies."
in soviet Russia stealth traidmarks you
That "free" registration is the payment that the NYT demands in return for their work.
If you have no problem with people taking your work for free (I would laugh myself into an asthma attack of you were one of these computer programmers that constantly decries software piracy), then at least you're morally consistant.
If you look at the logos on that page, they all seem to have been made with a 3D text-extruder plugin from the GIMP or Photoshop. I would guess that they spent maybe 1.5 minutes designing and producing each logo. Those are really, really awful logos.
Also, he claims to have trademarked words and phrases like "tree house", "fable", and "terminator". "Terminator"???? Jesus Christ.
P.S. Has anybody trademarked "Famous Trademarks" yet? It would be poetic justice if someone trademarked "Famous Trademarks", then went after this asshole. Turnabout is fair play, and all that.
That sounds perfect for my small company. Where did you find the service and what are the going rates? Do you have any links you can provide?
Why is the parent modded "Score:0, Flamebait"?
/. crowd has little respect for other people's copyrights.
It's a perfectly accurate, legitimate point. The fact that the moderators have essentially said "Aww, screw that" just goes to show that the RIAA/MPAA crowd aren't entirely wrong: the
THIS MAN HAS NEVER BEEN PUNCHED IN THE FACE. If he had, he wouldn't think he could get away with anything like this.
You would think that this guy would have the word 'cocksucker' in his portfolio. After all, he is one!!!
...that sooner or later it's just going to be easier to KILL the stupid sonofabitch in question, than it is to take care of the situation properly.
Oh wait...when this kind of bullshit becomes rampant, killing the perpetrators WILL be 'taking care of it properly'...
Seriously though, this kind of crap is ridiculous. I would give anything for this guy to be killed by ninjas. I really would. Any takers?
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
Monster Cable has tried to take over ownership of the word Monster for years and years. (Search google "Monster Cable Lawsuits") This Stealth guy is just a Johnny-Come-Lately in comparison.
I had a domain name that I picked at random years ago. Never put a web server up like I had planned but kept the domain name around in case I had a change of heart. I receive this huge packet of fill-in-the-blank legal documents from him threatning me for this and that. After doing some searches online about this character, find out he represents himself in all cases. He's not an attorney, just a guy that knows how to play the system. He tries to drag out proceedings so the plantiff's finally settle out of court instead of drawn out legal fees. Funny thing is, it was a different word in this case (not Stealth) that he claimed to have owned. After doing searches, I found out this jackass had no registered uses of this name anywhere. Needless to say, I chucked the crap. I was supposed to get sued if I didn't reply in 14 days, guess what happened? Nada, what a suprise. He even has a fan site, where there's lots of companies/individuals also receiving the same junk mail. He's a leach, he has no products or services actually, he just tries to fear people to paying him through legal extortion. Hope this guy dies of some long and painful fight with cancer. I know lots of people would be partying that night.
Last time I saw him, he looked reasonably thin (oof).
Aren't some of these from other copyrighted works?
I could only find reference to stealthat.com, a site created to "provide information regarding one Leo Stoller," in the google cache. Where'd it go?
It sounds like an insurance plan; charge a small monthly fee and most of the people rarely if ever need lawyers.
I wonder how Sony feels about this.
http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/stealth/
I was going to say this as soon as I saw the article. I recall a big case involving Monster Cable last year, it was widely discussed on a few Usenet groups. They're bullying every commercial use of the word monster with claims that they're about to go into business in whatever area it's used in, not just audio-related businesses.
Want to see who, apparently because of legal bullying (technically called abuse of process), gives a link to Monster Cable? The job site. Look at the link at the very bottom of the page:
http://monster.com/
Tag lost or not installed.
Theres more to lawyers than lawsuits and criminals. Contracts to be read/written, permit applications filed for building/renovating/improving, property management (a huge legal specialty) and a whole lot of other things that the business owner has no time for, so he pays the lawyer to make sure everything is done in a timely and legal manner.
And believe me, the same system exists in europe and in many ways its much more rigid and arcane with the rules to be followed about labor and property management.
But no, please, continue ranting and further demonstrate your lack of knowledge about running a business.
-
Especially if his middle initial is "D" and he was born in 1946 and he lived in River Forest IL.
Oops, let's change that to "won't like Zabasearch".
Be nice now.
Stoller came after me back in March 2004 because I was using 'stealth' in my domain name - and still am! I documented it all here:
My Stoller Story. He was going after a hell of a lot of personal websites at the time, trying to scare money out of people. He deserves a good kicking. If it wasn't for the fact he was on the other side of the Atlantic I'd personally have torn him limb from limb.
Given that identity theft is a serious problem (or the media would like the public to believe is one), I've registered stealthisidentity.com...
http://www.stealthboats.com/
Will this be sued into oblivion too??
is that he's gotten as far as he has."
How could anyone possibly believe otherwise? This is the natural path of all these kinds of laws. There can be no other way. All prohibitions end up like this, mostly due to the selective enforcement(and mostly against the poor). If you are to continue with this, you will continue to see the same kinds of results. So, let's see if we can abolish the whole thing without having to fire a shot. Freedom shouldn't have to come out the barrel of a gun.
What?
I suggest making a complaint against this individual here:
s p
http://www.ag.state.il.us/about/email_consumers.j
He lists many words and phrases that he claims to own the rights to, which does not, and then tries to get people to pay licensing fees.
I am hereby requesting all rights on that word "fraglerspasmstickshit".
A quick search of live and dead trademarks with the word "stealth" in them returns a list of 514 different registered trademarks at http://uspto.gov/. I wonder if he's claiming his "right" to those as well?
There's no reason to worry about people like this. Eventually this Stoller character will run into the mob or a front company for jihadis or some other group that has no compunction about laying hands on their fellow man rather than "paying him to go away". When faced with Stoller's extortion they will simple crush his testicles in a vice and soon he'll be willing to pay them to go away.
Nothing is going to change until we shoot the bastards.
Andy Out!
This time it's an IP lawyer he's trying to threaten, click HERE
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
dick
Why Northrop Grumman caved in, I'll never know.
Beacuse paying him $10 to "go away" is about $4 cheaper than using an RPG on him.
Oh, and it's also few thousand dollars cheaper than paying a legal staff to deal with his crap.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
I have copyrighted, patented, and trademarked the words 'copyright', 'patent', and 'trademark' and all derivatives thereof. Any future Slashdot stories which refer to these topics in any way must be preapproved and pay the appropriate licensing fees. Contact my lawyers at Dewey, Cheatam, and Howe for licensing information.
You have been warned.
Serving your airship needs since 1995.
So this guy wants exclusive use of the word on an International level! I wonder if the word exists in any other language and what legal claim would be made for the word in a non-English speaking country.
Anyway, the package, as usual, contained letters from companies that had withdrawn their use of the word "stealth" from their products etc.
I was concerned when I received the package so I had a good friend of mine look over the letters to see what my legal standing was. My friend pretty much laughed at the whole thing and proceeded to point out that every few letters were identical in wording, sentence structure, and paragraph positioning. He was absolutely correct!
He believed that all of the response letters coming from companies such as Panasonic, that were included in the package, were doctored.
All of you guys that have received the package, have a close look at the letters and see for yourself.
In addition, I scanned the whole package and sent it to a Lawyer in Missouri... he basically said that the this guy was seen, amongst the legal fraternity, as a clown.
If anyone wants a copy of the package let me know so I can email it to you (or is that a breach of copyright?)
Just saw a preview for a movie and guess what the name was...
"Stealth"
Just wait for the lawsuit!
Organization:
t s.jhtml;jsessionid=GS3RUEBGBRKEGCWMEAQCFEY?whoisto ken=0&_requestid=415445/
Association Network Management
Leo Stoller
PO Box 35189
Chicago, IL 60707-0189
US
Phone: 773-283-3880
Fax..: 708-453-0083
Email: leo@rentamark.com
Registrar Name....: Register.com
Registrar Whois...: whois.register.com
Registrar Homepage: http://www.register.com/
Domain Name: RENTAMARK.COM
Created on..............: Mon, Sep 20, 1999
Expires on..............: Thu, Sep 20, 2007
Record last updated on..: Wed, Jun 05, 2002
Administrative Contact:
Association Network Management
Leo Stoller
PO Box 35189
Chicago, IL 60707-0189
US
Phone: 773-283-3880
Fax..: 708-453-0083
Email: leo@rentamark.com
Technical Contact, Zone Contact:
Register.Com
Domain Registrar
575 8th Avenue - 11th Floor
New York, NY 10018
US
Phone: 902-749-2701
Fax..: 902-749-5429
Email: domain-registrar@register.com
http://www.networksolutions.com/en_US/whois/resul
Hi Andrea! Nice to finally see you here on /. Just another grateful fan saying 'hello' ... :-)
Alison
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." - Albert Einstein
Seriously. What this guy is doing amounts to extortion, pure and simple. I think there is likely enough evidence if criminal charges were to be laid to convict him of extortion charges. The fact that he's never won any of the 60 cases that's gone to court shows that his trademark is without merit and he's merely using the legal system as a form of intimidation
I sincerely hope that any of the victims of his extortion racket decides to file a criminal complaint. Given that his activity is crossing state lines, I would think federal charges would also be in order.
It could be a big hit.
September 2011: Looking for Cocoa/iOS work in Boston area Cocoa Programmer Quincy, MA
Just keep it up scumbags...
The more idiots abuse the system in such obvious ways, the more people will realize the error of its ways.
Because there's a couple tech companies who think they can use "Tiger" and several sport teams too.
-- Boycott Shell
Actually copyrights are for commercial rights...copying as part of a serious discussion is not only not a violation of copyright but is protected speech.
Anyone want to make use of their "Expert Witness" services? http://rentamark.com/Expert_Witness/expert_witness .html/
Oh how I want someone who is being litigated to try to use their service!
Thanks for the link! :)
"The newly born animals are then whisked off for a quick run through a giant baking oven." --heard on Food Network
i guess the movie "stealth" will have to be renamed "avoiding detection by moving carefully"
what about if i do the same and have it with the word 'The' i would make a lotta money then... i wonder what about the stealth bomber i guess he wouldn't want to go after the government and end up disappearing
(yes i know i suck at spelling fell free to correct my grammar and/or spellin i dont care, im still not going to change
I don't know of any cases involving pasting the entirety of an available text on a messageboard for the sole and express purpose of violating the publisher's terms of use, but I don't think you'd get very far with a fair use defense.
hahahah only in fucked up America can shit like this happen.
This fuckster can go sue himself up the ass for all I care:
stealth stealth stealth stealth stealth stealth stealth!!!
It does indeed look like US law etc has really gone to the dogs!
Dave
Slashdot can go and get fucked.
some people don't believe in copyright, .. ... .. the one that feels what is right
they believe its evil
just like selling software that has already been payed for in wages
or whoring out women against their will
or killing,
you know
some people who believe in good not the capitalistic redefinition of good but the one you feel inside,
-1 idiot/-1 wrong. For a post that was _factually inaccurate_ - not necessarily flamebait, or overrated... just wrong. Like the opposite of "informative"
Looking for freelance Actionscript (Flash/Flex) or ColdFusion work and/or freelance developers. Email me, put Slashdot
groundless trademark claimants get sued by you!
/ tma1995121/s129.html
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act
"Groundless threats of legal proceedings
(1) If a person threatens to bring an action against another person ( threatened person ) on the ground that the threatened person has infringed:
(a) a registered trade mark; or
(b) a trade mark alleged by the person to be registered;
any person aggrieved by the threat ( plaintiff ) may bring an action (either in a prescribed court or in any other court having jurisdiction) against the person making the threat ( defendant ).
[...]
The plaintiff may also recover any damages that he or she has sustained because of the defendant's conduct."
We also have a kind of loser pays here; not in all cases, but I think where the judge determines that the loser shouldn't have brought the action in the first place, or has caused the winner unreasonable costs. It's not perfect, but it prevents the kind of systemic abuse of the system that you USians seem to be suffering. Your legislators seem to be caught up in a fantasy world where imagined infringements of sacrosanct constitutional rights are more important than demonstrated failures and injustices caused by the status quo. Good luck with that whole Democracy thing, anyway. I've heard it's the bomb.
Hypermedia, virtual worlds, human interface, truth, beauty.
You can't own a bleeding WORD!
antipaucity
773-283-3880, or write to us at:
Rentamark.com
PO Box 31589
Chicago, IL 60707-0189
"(I) have this unfortunate condition that causes me not to believe a single thing any politician says when a mic's on.
You know, I would think that Northrop Grumman would have better ways of dealing with guys like this.
Like, for example, the unexplained failure of the guidance system on the missile that just happened to land on his house?
We all chip in and trademark the term "FUCK NUT" then present it to him as a gift.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
> There ought to be a law (maybe there is) that
> says this kind of abuse of trademark is illegal
I think any kind of legal harassment ("legal extortion") should be illegal, not just the kind related to trademarks. Lawyers should know that they should be careful that a legal threat made should be reasonable, or they might risk more than just losing a case in court. In severe cases they should face criminal charges.
Legal threats are a sort of weapon, and abusing it should have consequences.
Just tradmark the word "Steal" in terms of sports products and sue the guy's Stealth product lines.
Obviously this guy is in the business of extortion. Each separate story might sound like the guy trying to protect a trademark, but all taken together show that it is obviously not the case. A court can excuse the guy for one case of harrassing someone that followed the word "steal" by a word starting with "th". A court can excuse the guy for harrassinf a private (non-commercial) website using the disctionary word.
But collectively, the evidence described in this story clearly shows that all of these are planned of systematic extortion, and not protecting a brand name in certain areas of commerce. The guy is just shooting around and sometimes collects settlement money. The evidence should be collected. And the guy should face criminal charges and serve time.
I go by the nick Stealth Tree. i registered Stealth-tree.com i got an mail message from the states (im an aussie) with all this legal stuff which looked kind of real, but totally inappropriate because i wasnt selling anything, and had no products, just a home page. the only thing i was scared of was if this went to court in the US somehow and i was made to pay some legal fees. I already knew it was some kind of scam, but thought it might have some kind of basis. (i know some things about law, but american laws are sometimes nonsense).
anyway a mate told me there was this article, so im going to read it now.