People make the mistake of assuming corporations are monoliths, acting in unison toward a common goal. Thus we apply single agency to them and try to interpret their behavior in that light. However that isn’t how they work. They are a collection of departments and people with competing goals who don’t always talk to each other.
In this case, some entry level legal counsel was probably tasked with “defending our trademarks” or whatever. In their zeal, perhaps they learned about the Strike tool in YouTube and started filing them. They were doing their one job to the best of their ability and are unaware of larger consequences. They are not a PR, Brand Management, Fan Relations, Marketing, or Social Media person. They are a legal intern (or whatever) trying to do a bang-up job on the task assigned.
The scenario above is invented (I have no idea of the details of what happened here) but the point is that something like this is probably what happened because companies are not monoliths. They do stupid things all the time simply because the left and right hands don’t talk to each other much.
