Ohio State can’t take a ‘joke,’ Michigan bar says in response to lawsuit

The owners of a bar in Michigan that serves up Buckeye Tears for $7 a pint have answered Ohio State University’s claim that their beer violates federal trademark protections.

OSU’s overreaction to a bit of good-natured ribbing just adds more Buckeye tears to the keg, they claim in papers filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Oct. 6. It’s their lawyer’s response to Ohio State’s opposition of a trademark application by the Brown Jug, a bar and restaurant near the University of Michigan’s campus in Ann Arbor.

“The Buckeye Tears mark … plays into a perception shared by Michigan fans — particularly in the wake of their football team’s four consecutive victories over Ohio State — that Ohio State and its supporters may on occasion act like sore losers,” attorneys from the law firm Fenwick & West wrote on the Brown Jug’s behalf.

“Ohio State’s very filing of the opposition validates that perception,” they wrote.

OSU put itself on record Aug. 27 against the bar’s application for a trademark on Buckeye Tears. The university said the beer would create “a false sense of connection with Ohio State” and damage the university’s “reputation and goodwill.”

Ohio State holds trademarks on the Buckeyes’ name and said it has reaped more than $145 million in royalties from it over the last decade.

The Brown Jug’s lawyers, however, said the word Buckeye is already used for more than 5,700 licensed businesses in Ohio and is a brand name on beer, wine and liquor that OSU has “apparently not seen fit to police.”

“Ohio State called its team of lawyers only when a Michigan small business sought to make a good-natured joke,” he said.

At least one of the eight Buckeyes-named products used as an example, though, is licensed by Ohio State.

OSU spokesman Ben Johnson declined to comment on the Brown Jug’s response, which included another dig at the Buckeyes.

“The generic use of ‘buckeye’ to refer to Ohioans goes back to at least 1788,” wrote the four lawyers, one of whom is a University of Michigan Law School graduate. “In its early meaning, the term ‘buckeye’ was used to convey that Ohioans as a group were ‘untaught’ and ‘awkward.’ It was not until over 100 years later that Ohio State, the leading public institution of higher learning in Ohio, thought that it should also use this word to refer to its students and commercial offerings.”

Bob Vitale can be reached at rvitale@dispatch.com or at @dispatchdining on the Instagram social platform.