Corporations have money and money attracts lawyers. Some discipline would have been required for the trademark stuff because you have to be very careful about it or lose your job.

Now, did something cause other issues that converted this from formal "don't do that, use the official process" and nothing more? Sounds like something caused this to escalate. It could be toes were stepped on, could be a bad reaction to the warning, or could just be wanting to cut employee numbers in a shortsighted way.