Judge: Shut down Boilermakers Beer

LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Of all the college and professional teams Paul Parshall has assembled for an enterprise that goes by Sports Beer Brewing Co., the Florida entrepreneur says he’s not sure why Purdue University, out of the 250 or so others, is the only one to have a problem with what he’s doing.

“They already have their own name on their own beer (at Purdue) – Boiler Gold, I think,” Parshall said Thursday. “Why are they coming after me? Boilermakers Beer is mine.”

On Thursday, Tippecanoe Superior Court 1 Judge Randy Williams agreed with Purdue that the name Boilermakers, in fact, wasn’t Parshall’s to license to others looking to brew beer.

Williams issued a preliminary injunction, giving Parshall five business days to remove any reference to Purdue, Boilermakers, Boilermakers Beer or Purdue Boilermakers Brewing from the Sports Beer Brewing Co. website and promotional materials.

Parshall said he planned to appeal.

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Purdue filed a lawsuit in February, six months after Parshall had called catering services at the Purdue Memorial Union, offering to hook up the university with a craft brew called Boilermakers Beer.

In 2016, Parshall paid a $10 fee to the Indiana secretary of state’s office for a state trademark for the name Boilermakers Beer. Over the past 2½ years, Parshall said he’s applied for similar state trademarks and service marks that referenced colleges, NFL, NHL and Major League Baseball teams, as well as ones tied to the Indianapolis 500, the Brickyard 400 and assorting sporting events.

For Boilermakers Beer, Parshall created a label featuring a clip art locomotive rendered in gold against a backdrop of black. As with other marks in his collection – including the New York Yankees, Green Bay Packers, Boston Bruins and Ohio State – Parshall’s sportsbeerbrewing.com came with the marketing invitation: “Claim your brand.”

Purdue objected – even though Parshall admitted that he’d never lined up a craft brewer to make a drop of beer under any of the trademarks in his portfolio.

During a court hearing Oct. 31, Bill Kealey, attorney with Stuart & Branigin, a Lafayette firm representing Purdue, argued that Purdue’s federal trademarks on variations of Purdue, Boilermakers and Boilers – in name and in logos – trumped Parshall’s state trademark.

Mary King, senior director of marketing operations at Purdue, testified that Purdue took care with licensing the university’s name, brand and marks, many of which date to the earliest days of the school, founded in 1869 in West Lafayette. (Attorneys presented 1891 clippings from Crawfordsville newspapers that first dubbed football players “burly Boilermakers of Purdue.” The term was meant to be derogatory, but Purdue’s teams adopted the Boilermaker name, just the same.)

King testified that Purdue had received roughly $21 million in net royalties from Purdue-licensed gear and goods since 1988. Nearly all of that money, King said, was reserved for student scholarships.

Since filing the lawsuit in February, Purdue worked with People’s Brewing Co. of Lafayette to produce Boiler Gold American Pale Ale, which has been sold at football games since early September and on retail shelves as of October.

The upshot of Kealey’s case: It didn’t matter that Purdue never planned to use the name Boilermakers Beer on its signature brew. The name wasn’t Parshall’s to use or to license to anyone else.

Parshall did not attend the Oct. 31 hearing. A week before the hearing, Parshall faxed a handwritten note to the court asking to delay the case, saying he couldn’t find an attorney in Indiana. He told the J&C that he was told by law firms in Greater Lafayette that they had conflicts of interest that kept them from going up against Purdue. In court, Williams listed a handful of cases involving Purdue that didn’t seem to have trouble finding a lawyer.

On Thursday, Parshall said he had an attorney and would contest the preliminary injunction. But he said he’d take Boilermakers Beer and Purdue Boilermakers Brewing off his page.

“I still say those should be mine,” Parshall said. “I don’t get it.”

Reach Dave Bangert at 765-420-5258 or at dbangert@gannett.com.