This logic assumes that it's cheap to get a trademark, whereas the parent says it'll cost $2000. This leaves small hobby stores like Cliff's with no practical

This logic assumes that it's cheap to get a trademark, whereas the parent says it'll cost $2000. This leaves small hobby stores like Cliff's with no practical defense against scams like this if they've only made a few thousand in profits through amazon sales, especially if they don't have that cash on hand (and suddenly lose their amazon revenue stream!) Like it's easy to say "well you should have trademarked your product" after the fact, but very few people have even heard of this scam when it happens to them.