In 2006 the Detroit Red Wings sued a boot company in Minnesota over the words “Red Wing.”
The hockey club's own trademark arm filed four separate proceedings against one bootmaker.
It fought for nearly five years.
Then in July 2011 it withdrew, and the case was dismissed with prejudice. The boot company's trademark registered and has since been renewed.
Which is the correct outcome, because Charles Beckman founded the Red Wing Shoe Company in Red Wing, Minnesota in 1905, and the Detroit hockey team did not exist until 1926.
That fight is a good way into this company, because the thing Red Wing actually sells is not boots. It is a century of being the only reason anyone outside Minnesota has heard of a town of sixteen thousand people.