Duke University, one of the most prestigious colleges in the United States and home to one of the country’s most famous basketball programs, has found itself in the middle of a courtroom battle. This case is not about basketball wins or losses. It’s about something much bigger, protecting the Duke brand.

The lawsuit centers around Duke Athletics’ registered trademarks. “A trademark is any word, name, symbol, or design, or any combination thereof, used in commerce to identify and distinguish the goods of one manufacturer or seller from those of another.” (United States Patent and Trademark Office, n.d.). Duke argues that online sellers have been using its logos and name without permission to sell counterfeit merchandise on popular e-commerce platforms like Temu and AliExpress.

According to the complaint, these sellers created look-alike websites designed to trick fans, hide behind offshore bank accounts and payment processors, and moved money across borders to make themselves difficult to track. The average consumer believes they are buying authentic Duke gear but instead are buying knockoffs. Now Duke is seeking a permanent injunction to bar the defendants from using Duke trademarks or any reproductions, copies or “colorable imitations” in the marketing, sale, shipping, storing and other uses of products.

Some of the counterfeit products featured designs tied to Cooper Flagg, a basketball phenom and the recent No. 1 pick in the NBA Draft. That makes the knockoffs especially problematic, blurring the line between official Duke merchandise and fakes at a time when the university’s brand is highly visible on a national stage. It also comes at a moment when Flagg’s own name, image, and likeness (NIL) is at an all-time high. As one of the most talked-about rookies of all time, his personal brand carries immense commercial value, and counterfeiters tapping into that momentum not only exploit Duke’s trademarks but also undermine Flagg’s ability to control and benefit from his own NIL rights.

Duke owns numerous federally registered trademarks that cover apparel, athletic uniforms, and the use of its name in connection with apparel and sports competitions. Using those marks without authorization is not creative, it is outright trademark infringement.

This is not the first time a university has been forced to fight this battle. In the case, LSU v. Smack Apparel, four major universities sued Smack Apparel for selling t-shirts using the school’s colors and identifying marks that looked like their official gear. Smack Apparel did this purposefully to capitalize on the school’s popularity. The court reasoned that Smack’s shirts were likely to confuse fans into thinking the products were licensed, and that the company was deliberately trying to capitalize on the schools’ reputations. When fans cannot tell whether a product is officially licensed or not, the trademark registration has already been infringed.

The issue extends far beyond a few rogue sellers. Counterfeit goods in the United States overwhelmingly come from China and Hong Kong. In fact, nearly 90 percent of all trademark-infringing products seized by U.S. Customs and Border Protection in 2024 originated from those regions. (The Truth Behind Counterfeits , n.d.). This is not just about sports merchandise. Everything from electronics to pharmaceuticals is affected. A 2025 study by the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation found that nearly half of sampled products flagged as suspicious on Chinese-based platforms like Temu, AliExpress, and SHEIN were likely counterfeits. Even China’s own regulators acknowledge the scale of the problem, reporting tens of thousands of trademark infringement investigations each year and millions of counterfeit items seized through e-commerce and export hubs. (Clemens, 2025).

The economic cost of counterfeiting is staggering. It siphons billions of dollars away from legitimate companies, robs governments of tax revenue, destroys jobs in manufacturing and retail, and leaves consumers with products that are often lower quality or even unsafe. In sports, counterfeit merchandise undermines licensing deals, cheats athletes and schools out of revenue, and erodes the trust fans place in the brands they support.

For Duke, the lawsuit is about more than hoodies and t-shirts. It’s about defending decades of brand value and making sure that when a fan buys something with the Duke logo, they know it is authentic. If their trademark registration is not defended, then it could be lost. The owner of a trademark registration can lose their rights if they fail to defend their mark and allow widespread infringement to go unchecked. Trademarks are built on consistent use and enforcement, if you do not protect them, they weaken. Duke is doing the smart thing by filing the lawsuit because once counterfeits flood the market, cleaning up the mess becomes far more expensive and damaging than taking steps to protect your marks from the start.

Counterfeiting may feel like a distant issue, but it touches all of us. If you have bought a fake jersey, a knockoff handbag, or a suspiciously cheap gadget online, you have seen the problem firsthand. Duke’s lawsuit shows that in sports and in business, protecting your trademark registrations is of the utmost importance to protect your future. The real win does not come from scoring points on the court, it comes from safeguarding what you have built off of it so no one else can steal it.