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parklover
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y_p_w
That was really good, although he probably didn't understand that the Space Shuttle Atlantis trademark was registered with the permission of NASA and the express understanding that it will transfer for free to a new concessionaire.
Which brings up the question why NASA and DNC worked together to make the service mark and DNC went behind the back of the NPS to trademark more names. Is NASA smarter than the NPS? Did DNC figure that more people relate to the shuttle than they do Yosemite and if they kept the name more people would get upset? Most likely it is none of these.
My husband and I were just talking about this article and the whole mess and he brought up some interesting points why he feels that the new names are gong to be used forever: DNC is never going to back down. DNC makes so much money running other places they don't care if they never get another park contract. He asked his co-workers, which there is a large number, and none of them knew this Yosemite name thing was going on because they are not park goers so when Yosemite is in the news, they really don't pay attention to the story. Is there not enough people protesting and writing their congressmen? His question to me was how do we get non national park goers or those who might only go to Yosemite once and don't have the connection to the park like those of us here do, to care about the name change so they will also put pressure on DNC. And finally, people are not going to stop going to Yosemite because of the name changes so it they never get changed back, will anyone care 25, 50 or a 100 years from now?
The Space Shuttle Atlantis deal was only for a specific logo that Delaware North designed with the help of NASA. So obviously that's different. Even if Delaware North had exclusive ownership without such a deal, it could be easy to just design a new one. The trademark was only for that specific image.
Obviously NPS is going to try to either get those trademarks rescinded or transferred to the federal government. I know of a similar case where the owners of a business decided to lease to an operator and allowed for the use of the long-established name. When the operator attempted to expand and trademarked the name, the owners later found out and forced the USPTO to rescind the registrations, even though they nor their predecessors attempted to register the trademark.
I don't know about The Ahwahnee since it was trademarked at an earlier time when the ownership situation was more complicated. At that time concessionaires often owned the buildings, although NPS owned the land. Personally I think everything changed when NPS took over the buildings. Also - all Delaware North had was a contract with a vague clause that they had to buy "other assets" and a flat price for buying all assets including physical ones like furniture. That they bought unregistered trademarks is going to be tough to prove in court without some paper trail.
And I have a hard time believing they should be able to trademark "Yosemite National Park" even if it's only for t-shirts and other souvenirs. The name is clearly public domain and someone at the USPTO really fell asleep on that one. They'll have to sue everyone selling something with that name on Cafepress, various souvenir merchants, and numerous T-shirts sold in stores in Groveland, Mariposa, Oakhurst, and other gateway towns. Heck - the Merrell/National Park Foundation Yosemite t-shirt I bought could be in violation.
