Imagine being a prestigious university with a multi-billion dollar endowment, trying to bully a small local business, hundreds of miles away, into changing their name?

Well that's what Duke University has done to Iron Duke Brewing in Ludlow, Massachusetts. The owners have spent years building a brand, with no affiliation or resemblance to that of the school's, yet Duke has sent them a cease & desist, trying to force them to drop the word "Duke" in their names.

Inception of the name "Iron Duke" has nothing to do with the university or its apparent athletic boosters that no one but Duke and its alumni care about.

Join me in publicly shaming the school for its absolutely despicable actions in hopes that the school drops this absurd C&D and let Iron Duke Brewing carry on with their business. The owners just ended a years-long legal battle with landlords and shouldn't have to start from scratch on building their beer brand because of a University's greed.

Perhaps the school is looking to get any penny they can due to the current accusations its dealing with for paying athletes like Zion Williamson to come to Coach K's one-and-done factory, but you can guarantee if Duke doesn't realize how ridiculous and unfair its actions are, that the North Carolina Tar Heels, or any other blue blood basketball school that helps us out here, will have a whole new fan base up in Western Massachusetts.

Do the right thing Duke. I encourage all of you to share this far and wide to help the little guy.

#SaveIronDukeBrewing

From MassLive:

“It was a hard thing to mentally get over, but financially there wasn’t really an option,” (Head Brewer Nick) Morin said. “With us being under so much financial strain with purchasing a new building and also being actively in a legal battle with the landlord, there just wasn’t any more financial resources to wage another war. Really, at that point, our choice was to change the name or go out of business.”

“I guess they were making the argument that since, at their sports games, they do sell alcoholic beverages is that somehow we’re in the same business and there’s an overlap there,” Morin said. “It’s kind of a very broad interpretation of the trademark.”

From The Reminder:

“Duke is one of several large universities that is very aggressive in defending their trademarks. We don’t see any overlaps in usage and the origins of our name is completely unrelated, but when you are up against something like Duke with the resources they have, we decided it was something we didn’t want to take on. The litigation with WestMass literally set us back years,,” Morin explained. “We’re not the only small business that has been affected like this, but that doesn’t make it any easier. The name means a lot to us and represents the work and everything we’ve done that we’re really proud of.”