Netgear has filed counterclaims against rival router maker TP-Link in federal court in Delaware, accusing the company of falsely marketing itself as American when it is anything but.
According to Tom's Hardware, Netgear filed the suit on June 11, targeting TP-Link under the Lanham Act — the federal statute that governs false advertising and trademark disputes. The core accusation is blunt: TP-Link, which has leaned into an "American company" identity as part of a recent rebrand, "remains, at its core, a Chinese company selling Chinese-made products."
The timing matters. TP-Link is the larger company in this fight — it outsells Netgear in the consumer router market — and it apparently sued Netgear first. Netgear's counterclaims are a direct counterattack, reframing the legal battle around TP-Link's national identity rather than whatever the original dispute concerned.
TP-Link has been under scrutiny in Washington in recent years, with U.S. lawmakers and officials raising national security concerns about Chinese-made networking equipment. The company has taken visible steps to distance itself from those associations, including establishing a U.S. headquarters. Netgear's lawsuit essentially argues that corporate restructuring does not change the fundamental origin of the products.
The case puts a spotlight on a question that goes well beyond routers: when a company with Chinese roots sets up American offices and rebrands, at what point — if ever — does it become genuinely American? The outcome could set a precedent for how "Made in America" or "American company" claims are scrutinized in industries where geopolitics and consumer hardware increasingly collide.