The Sturgis Motorcycle Rally is big business. Thousands of bikers from all over the world converge on this small Black Hills town each August to ride their motorcycles, party, listen to live music and buy souvenirs.

And bikers buy a lot of souvenirs. T-shirts, baseball caps, leathers, key rings, coffee cups, cigarette lighters, pins, patches, refrigerator magnets. Anything with the name Sturgis has intrinsic value.

That’s part of reason that a year-around battle has been raging in Sturgis for a decade, actually longer. Who owns the rally, who owns the name Sturgis Rally and who benefits from the Sturgis name have been questions that have been asked and debated in and out of court.

The biggest of those running battles ended quietly last week. The Sturgis Chamber of Commerce, which owns the name Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, acquired the intellectual property of its rival, Sturgis Bike Week Inc. The deal included the Sturgis Bike Week name, trademark, website, copyrighted artwork and several domain names.

The price wasn’t disclosed, but Sturgis Bike Week is no small potato. In 2005, I toured its T-shirt factory just north of the Glencoe Campground. At the time, it was a huge, year-around operation with about 90 employees.

They were printing T-shirts and distributing other merchandise for Daytona, Myrtle Beach and about 18 small regional biker events. They were also working on a line of licensed “Curious George” T-shirts that kids could color themselves with special crayons. I’m not sure what this deal means for of that manufacturing and merchandizing might.

In local stories about the last week’s Chamber deal, Sturgis Bike Week partners Bob Davis, Francie Reubel-Alberts and Gary Lippold said they wanted to keep the Sturgis Bike Week name in Sturgis.

The stories I read didn’t say why they sold the Sturgis Bike Week rights. I know that in January Gary Lippold sold Glencoe, the Rockin’ the Rally concert venue and the Thunder Road vendor park to a guy in California. And I know Rockin’ the Rally has been struggling to attract big crowds to match big-name acts like KISS, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Nickleback and the Black Crowes.

I’m sure this is not the last Battle of Sturgis. Trademarks and copyrights are worth a lot of money, and the owners take extraordinary steps to protect them. Harley-Davidson, the big daddy of trademarks, sends people out during each rally in search of unlicensed products bearing the H-D name. And woe to those who dare sell unlicensed H-D products. Harley has lawyers, and they’re not afraid to use them.