As the Cleveland baseball team looks for a new name, Arlen Love applied for "Cleveland Spiders"

In applying for "Cleveland Spiders" as a trademark, did Mr. Love love the mark or the potential for profiting from it?  The Cleveland Spiders played in the National League from 1889 to 1899. 

This could potentially be viewed as trademark squatting, whereby someone files for valuable names for the purpose of later selling them.

The application is pending in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, which preliminarily rejected Love’s filing, for reasons including that it might be confused for University of Richmond’s Spiders, and he seems to face an uphill battle.  

Upshot:  when looking at adopting a new mark, with clear intent to use it in commerce, consider clearing and filing as early as possible.  The U.S. trademark office allows for filing before use, which is an important advantage for legitimate trademark applicants.