Along those lines: on June 24th, 2009, Spongetech filed for 8 trademarks:
1 77773533 THE SMARTER HOUSEHOLD SPONGE TARR LIVE 2 77773525 THE SMARTER KITCHEN SPONGE TARR LIVE 3 77767286 THE SMARTER PET SPONGE TARR LIVE 4 77767239 THE SMARTER MEDICAL SPONGE TARR LIVE 5 77767232 THE SMARTER CHILD SPONGE TARR LIVE 6 77767213 THE SMARTER BOAT SPONGE TARR LIVE 7 77767208 THE SMARTER CAR SPONGE TARR LIVE 8 77767201 THE SMARTER SPONGE TARR LIVE
They may have even issued a press release about it; I haven't gone back to look. Edit: Yep, PR on 7/06/09.
What's smoke and mirrors about that? Read the initial refusals for those marks, all eight of them. There were obvious omissions in the applications that make it clear to me that they really weren't concerned about getting those marks.
To the point: I allege they filed for those marks, not as a bona fide desire to register them for use in the market, but rather, to give the impression that they were serious about the sponge business.
They weren't. They were serious about selling shares, nothing else.
Lock these criminals up, and all those that aided/abetted.