As hockey season approaches and attention turns to the annual “Battle of Comm. Ave.” between Boston University and Boston College, another BU battle continues brewing — a lawsuit filed in Texas.
Baylor University filed a lawsuit on Aug. 8 in the U.S. District Court in Texas against BU, alleging trademark infringement over the University’s use of a similar interlocking “BU” logo.
The dispute is rooted in a decades-old co-existence agreement that once kept the two schools from colliding over branding, according to the complaint. Now, Baylor says BU crossed the line.
Both universities have declined to comment beyond the court filings, according to statements from Baylor Spokesperson Lori Fogleman and BU Spokesperson Colin Riley.
Alexandra Roberts, a professor at Northeastern University who specializes in trademark law, said she was initially skeptical about the case, given the two schools’ geographic distance and differing colors.
But after reviewing Baylor’s federal trademark registrations, she found that Baylor “has a solid chance of succeeding on this claim.”
Baylor traces its claim back more than a century. According to the complaint, the school adopted its interlocking “BU” in 1912, making it the university’s signature mark.
In 1987, Baylor applied to trademark the logo for clothing and athletic merchandise, and BU objected to the application.
A year later, the two schools reached a truce: BU withdrew its opposition, and Baylor’s registration went forward. The universities entered into a coexistence agreement, according to the complaint.
The agreement allows both schools to use “BU” as a logo, but it drew a firm boundary: BU would use a side-by-side “BU,” while Baylor alone retained rights to the interlocking version.
That boundary, Baylor now argues, has been broken.
The complaint alleged BU began selling hats in 2018 with an “essentially identical and/or confusingly similar” interlocking design in its campus store. The logo has since appeared on other merchandise, including athletic apparel and mugs.
Roberts said Baylor registered its interlocking logo for use on athletics — a critical category for a university with nationally ranked programs in football and basketball.
“In Baylor’s view, [BU’s] use could potentially just keep expanding more and more broadly,” Roberts said. “You’ve got overlapping audiences. You’ve got people across the country who might be interested in buying Baylor merch or Boston University merch, so you have a possible likelihood of confusion.”
Baylor contends this expansion violates the agreement and risks confusing consumers. In December 2021, Baylor communicated its objection, but BU continued using the interlocking logo, including on apparel for its club sports teams.
Stacey Dogan, a BU professor who teaches intellectual property law, said it is common for schools to use two-letter logos that overlap in appearance.
“I generally don’t think that it makes sense to allow one organization to prevent another organization that legitimately has the same shortened form of its name to use its initials in a fairly standard presentation,” she said.
Baylor would be taking an especially broad stance in this case, arguing that “the interlocking ‘B’ and ‘U’ in any color combination indicate Baylor,” Dogan said.
However, BU can argue their interlocking letters are common and are “always presented either in connection with the words Boston University or in red and white,” she added.
Even with Baylor’s claims, Roberts said the dispute is unlikely to ever reach a jury.
“The vast majority of lawsuits like this do settle, and these are schools that have worked together well before,” she said.
Roberts added that because Baylor and BU have formed an agreement in the past, there’s a chance the schools could “come to the negotiating table” and agree on “some limitations.”
If the case does go forward, she said, the court will weigh how similar the logos look, how they are used and where the products are sold.
When shoppers are in a BU or Baylor bookstore, no one is confused about which school’s merchandise they are buying, Roberts said. The harder question is whether confusion occurs when both universities sell through third-party platforms like Amazon.
“If consumer confusion is actually happening, that is great evidence that it’s likely, but I don’t know that Baylor can really find much of that,” Roberts said.
If the court were to side with Baylor, Roberts said the most probable outcome would be an injunction preventing BU from using the interlocking logo going forward.
“Damages are also possible but not particularly likely in a case like this,” she said. “The most likely outcome is that Baylor gets its way, and BU is not allowed to use the interlocking logo anymore.”
Injunctions can sometimes require unsold products to be destroyed, Roberts said.
Another option would be adding a disclaimer to tags or packaging stating that BU is not affiliated with Baylor. Roberts said such a measure could be ordered by the court or negotiated between the schools.
Conversely, if BU were to win the lawsuit, it would have “official permission” to use the interlocking logo on whatever they want, Roberts said.
Both sides of the argument, Roberts said, make the case anything but straightforward.
“It’s not a slam dunk by Baylor, but I do think it’s a fairly strong claim,” she said.
