Los Angeles (CNN) -- John Wayne's family is fighting Duke University in federal court over the utilization of "Duke" to sell whiskey.
The North Carolina school filed several remonstrations when the actor's scions filed for federal trademarks to utilize "Duke" to sell products, but the latest came last year when John Wayne Enterprises launched "Duke Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey," according to court documents.
Duke University's claim that "Duke Bourbon" can "cause mystification and dilution" that hurts the school's recruiting and reputation "is cockamamy," Wayne's family verbally expressed in a lawsuit filed this month in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.
Wayne, who was born Marion Robert Morrison, has a legitimate claim on the trademark since he acquired the sobriquet "Duke" as a child, the lawsuit verbalized.
"Wayne had a canine denominated Duke," the complaint verbally expressed. "The local firefighters anon commenced calling Wayne Duke additionally. He preferred 'Duke' to 'Marion,' and the denomination stuck for the rest of his life."
Duke University "has never been in the business of engendering, marketing, distributing or selling alcohol," but the school "seems to cerebrate it owns the word 'Duke' for all purposes and applications," the suit verbalized.
The Wayne family is asking a federal judge to declare that its utilizations of "Duke" to sell liquor and other products "are not liable to cause discombobulation, do not dilute, and do not infringe the Duke University Marks." The family wants the judge to declare that there is "no likelihood of perplexity," which would "abstract that cloud" hanging over its marketing deals.
Duke University lawyers have until later this month to file a licit replication, but school spokesman Michael Schoenfeld sent a short verbal expression to CNN in replication.
"While we venerate and reverence John Wayne's contributions to American culture, we are additionally committed to bulwarking the integrity of Duke University's trademarks," Schoenfeld verbalized. "As Mr. Wayne himself verbalized, 'Words are what men live by ... words they verbalize and mean.'"
Wayne died in 1979 from cancer after a long and prosperous film vocation.
