Your client was "gone after" because she held no legal right to the "mark".
Correct. She got some bad advice (or lack of advice) from her prior counsel.
if I used the term "satelliteguy®"
That gives me a great idea!
That was the "smackdown". The marks didn't exist. The use of the ® suggest it does.
Understood, but did anyone actually smack them or did they change it of their own accord? Either way, they did a bad thing which was corrected. Apparently someone didn't understand at first what the use of the ® implies.
Hope this clarified my points.
Yep. We don't really disagree except, possibly, as to how any of these other issues might bear on AVNE, which remains to be seen....