The Trump Organization, owned by Donald Trump, is suing vendors on major e-commerce sites like Amazon and eBay, alleging they are selling fake Trump-branded merchandise. The company is employing a controversial Schedule A legal approach, which could allow it to pursue hundreds of sellers while minimizing filing fees.
The conglomerate has sent a clear message to sellers: authentic Trump merchandise is available only through official channels. In a lawsuit filed last Friday in a U.S. District Court in Florida, the Trump Organization claims that various merchants across platforms such as Walmart, Amazon, and eBay are marketing “inferior imitations” of cups, baby apparel, T-shirts, and other goods bearing the Trump trademark.
“Defendants are improperly advertising, marketing, and/or selling unauthorized and illegal products infringing upon at least a portion of plaintiffs’ Trump trademarks,” the complaint states. “By selling counterfeit products that purport to be genuine and authorized products using the Trump trademarks … defendants cause confusion and deception in the marketplace.”
Selling Trump-branded merchandise has proven lucrative for some sellers; roughly 9,000 Amazon vendors reportedly generated close to $140 million in sales in the months preceding the election, according to e-commerce marketing platform Omnisend.
Controversial legal tactics
The Trump Organization’s choice to pursue these sellers via a Schedule A case has drawn scrutiny from legal experts. This type of lawsuit has grown popular among some trademark lawyers over the last few decades because it often enables plaintiffs to bypass certain fees and recover significant settlement sums.
As large e-commerce platforms expand their third-party marketplaces, concerns about counterfeit sales have increased, prompting plaintiffs to cast wide nets in holding alleged infringers accountable. Unlike typical trademark cases, Schedule A suits allow plaintiffs to sue numerous defendants without naming each explicitly—often labeling them as foreign sellers. This strategy helps plaintiffs avoid paying costly fees per defendant.
Schedule A cases also grant considerable discretion to judges. Many complaints use boilerplate language accusing anonymous counterfeiters of serious trademark infringement, as noted by Sarah Fackrell, a professor of intellectual property law at Chicago-Kent College of Law. The approach is partly rhetorical, aiming to convince judges to hold these unknown “bad actors” responsible, she told Fortune.
Judges can then order online marketplaces to freeze the accounts of accused sellers without notifying them immediately. Often lacking resources or legal support, many sellers choose to settle rather than contest the lawsuit.
“As you might imagine, when courts grant this, you wake up one day and your Amazon account is frozen, and you don’t know what’s going on,” Fackrell explained. “That creates an … incredible incentive to either settle or just default, depending on how much money you have or your business model.”
According to Fackrell, these cases can target anywhere from dozens up to a thousand sellers.
“So this is the game,” she said. “This is really extraordinary. This is not normally how federal litigation goes.”
Due process concerns
Some legal experts worry that many sellers learn of their account freezes only via email and discover they are defendants through these notifications. While some sellers may be sophisticated counterfeiters, others might be small vendors unaware they were infringing, Fackrell said. The broad nature of Schedule A lawsuits often fails to differentiate among defendants, potentially punishing smaller vendors as harshly as large-scale operators.
“There’s a lot of reasons to be concerned about due process, and these defendants kind of getting railroaded, whether or not they did anything wrong,” Fackrell said.
A 2023 case highlights these concerns: a Florida woman was ordered to pay $250,000 after selling $360 worth of tumblers featuring country musician Luke Combs on Amazon without authorization. She said she missed legal notices because they ended up in her junk mail while she was hospitalized. Combs later apologized and offered to help cover her medical expenses.
Other defendants in the lawsuit appear to be larger operations based in Asia.
Why is the Trump Organization suing now?
Since many of these cases remain sealed, it’s hard to gauge how much revenue Schedule A lawsuits generate, but Fackrell said some lawyers acknowledge the strategy can be a lucrative revenue stream.
“At least some of these plaintiffs are sold on this litigation format as an alternative revenue source,” she said.
Amy Landers, an intellectual property law professor at Drexel University’s Thomas R. Kline School of Law, told Fortune that the rationale behind the Trump Organization’s decision to file these lawsuits is unclear. Some brands tolerate unauthorized merchandise because it can serve as free advertising, she noted.
Luxury brands like Chanel and Louis Vuitton tend to be more aggressive litigants, aiming to protect their brand equity from dilution. The Trump Organization, however, has long dealt with unauthorized merchandise, raising questions about why it has chosen to enforce its trademarks now.
“If other people are selling merch and they didn’t authorize it, eventually they might look generic,” Landers said. “But this is so counterintuitive to me, because … there really wasn’t enforcement until now.”
