Xanterra Parks & Resorts has filed an application to trademark "El Tovar," and other lodging names on the South Rim of Grand Canyon National Park/NPS photo of El Tovar Hotel
Last fall, Xanterra Parks & Resorts was coming down to its last two months as concessionaire for the lodges and restaurants on the South Rim of Grand Canyon National Park. It had been unable to come to terms with the National Park Service over a new, 15-year pact that would take effect January 1, 2015, and had sued the agency over its contracting decisions. About the same time, Xanterra filed a slew of applications to trademark the names of those iconic lodges and restaurants covered by the contract.
Those applications, currently pending with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, come in the wake of news that Delaware North Co. had laid claim to trademarks to place names in Yosemite National Park, including that to The Ahwahnee Hotel, perhaps the grande dame of national park lodging.
Trademarking place names within the National Park System is not new for many products unrelated to the daily operations of a park. Old Faithful isn't just the name of a geyser, it's also tied to a gun. Denali is a national park in Alaska, and it's also a baby stroller and a medical device. Grand Teton National Park towers above Wyoming's western border, and "Grand Teton" is also a cheese and a vodka. But it's the trademarks taken out or applied for, some in recent months, on lodges and places within national parks that perhaps best underscore John Muir's belief that "nothing dollarable is safe."
Muir's full comment -- "Nothing dollarable is safe, however guarded. Thus the Yosemite Park, the beauty glory of California and the Nation, Nature's own mountain wonderland, has been attacked by spoilers ever since it was established, and this strife I suppose, must go on as part of the eternal battle between right and wrong." -- was made in 1908 in the wake of a move by the City of San Francisco to dam the Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park to create a reservoir for its water needs.
Leap ahead 106 years and Muir's fears are ringing loudly as concessions companies lay claim to trademarks for lodges they operate in the park and, at least in one case, place multi-million-dollar numbers to those trademarks if they lose the contract to operate those lodges.
Businesses have been making money off park names and places for decades. General Motors Corp. has taken names of parks -- Acadia and Denali, just to cite two -- and attached them to some of their vehicles. The Ballard Rifle & Cartridge Co. of Powell, Wyoming, received the "Old Faithful" trademark in 2008 for some of its firearms, while the Idaho Candy Co. trademarked some of its confections "Old Faithful" back in 1926.
Software companies have both trademarked park names and, in the case of Apple with its "Yosemite" operating system, simply affixed them to their products.
Delaware North maintains that it owns the trademark to The Ahwahnee Hotel, and won't relinquish it without compensation/Kurt Repanshek
In products unrelated to national parks, the use of park names, whether trademarked or not, might not outwardly pose a serious problem. But in the case of Delaware North Co. at Yosemite, Xanterra Parks & Resorts at Grand Canyon National Park, and the Grand Teton Lodge Co. in Grand Teton, the trademarking of place names and lodges could pose a threat to the historical integrity of the parks as well as a possible impediment to the Park Service's efforts to develop a competitive process for awarding concessions contracts, a process that should be in the best interests of the visiting public.
Delaware North (DNC) had garnered the most attention of late for its trademark claims to The Ahwahnee Hotel, Curry Village, the Wawona Hotel, and Badger Pass. It also received a trademark for "Bracebridge Dinner," a sumptuous year-end, yuletide feast with music and pagentry that has been conducted annually at The Ahwahnee since 1927.
When the Park Service last year prepared a prospectus for companies interested in running concessions in Yosemite, officials for Delaware North notified the agency that DNC had trademarks to various lodges and locations in Yosemite. If it lost the bidding for the 15-year concessions contract that begins in 2016, DNC would require the winning bidder, as part of its Leaseholder Surrender Interest, to pay $51 million for the right to those names. The concessionaire has said that when it acquired the Yosemite Park & Curry Co. in 1993, among the assets it acquired were the intellectual property, ie., the trademarks on place names to the lodges and Badger Pass.
Should the Park Service require that any concessionaire that succeeds Delaware North pay that company $51 million to retain the place names, or should a new concessionaire be given the option to avoid paying that fee by renaming those historic lodges and facilities, and so figuratively erase part of the park's history?
So far the Park Service has not officially recognized Delaware North's claim, but it has in the prospectus left open the door for renaming all the places to which the claim extends if another company wins the contract. As a result, for example, the hotel known since 1927 as "The Ahwahnee" could go by a different name.
At the same time, the Interior Department's Office of the Solicitor is looking into the matter to see if Delaware North can legally trademark those place names, which date back many decades and which Park Service officials consider part of the historical landscape and vernacular of the park.
Xanterra also has applied for a trademark to "Hermit's Rest."/NPS
A search of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office shows that other concessionaires also have laid claims to names in other national parks. Xanterra Parks & Resorts, which last October announced its intent to sue the Park Service over its concessions contract, that same month filed an application to trademark the name "El Tovar," which is attached to the famous hotel on the South Rim of the canyon. Within two weeks of that application, Xanterra made similar applications to trademark the names of virtually all commercial businesses on, and below, the South Rim: "Phantom Ranch," "Bright Angel Lodge," "Kachina Lodge," "Yavapai Lodge," "Maswick Lodge," "Red Horse Cabin," "Arizona Room," "Lookout Studio," "Buckey O'Neill Cabin," "Thunderbird Lodge," "Trailer Village,""Hopi House," "Hermit's Rest," and "Desert View Watchtower."
All of those applicatons are pending while the patent office reviews them.
Xanterra officials could not be reached Sunday to explain why they applied for the trademarks at a time when they had little more than two months left on their concessions contract, and had not bid on the new pact.
In response to Xanterra's lawsuit, the Park Service argued that Xanterra was trying to thwart competition and that the concessionaire felt that its history on the South Rim entitled it to remain there. While the lawsuit is still pending, the Park Service and Xanterra have come to terms on a temporary one-year contract to allow the company to continue running the concessions while the Park Service works to award the longer term, 15-year contract.
Another park concessionaire, Grand Teton Lodge Co., back in August 2005 received a trademark to "Jenny Lake Lodge," an opulent lodge in the national park. The trademark was renewed in September, according to patent office records.
Comments
Which is what we were talking about.
Besides "so what", they pay a much more disproportional share of the federal taxes (68%) than is their share of income (45%)
Because those monies have already been taxed. And even with those nominally lower rates they still pay a disproporation share of the federal income tax burden not including the portion they lose to corporate taxes.
And what would be "fair" about that? When you have lunch with your buddies, do you divey the check based on everyone's income? The reality is that it is the low income/noincome folks that are being subsidized by the more successful who are paying their necessary share - and more. The 47% should be thanking the top 10% not castigating them with envy.
I find it interesting that DNC has come up with a figure of 51 million. The buyout fee for the rest of the Xanterra contract at Grand Canyon- you guessed it!- 51 million, I believe!
Interesting post, Yup, "let them cake", Marie Antoninette.
Factual post. And contrary to your "let them (eat) cake" implying indifference, you would note I state the more successful are paying "their necessary" share. I recognize the more successful must pay more that an evenly allocated share. But they should be thanked for every increment they contribute not attacked for "not paying their fair share". Because they are paying their fair share and much, much more.
Since we're talking about who has paid the "fairer" share, might this old-timer remind everyone of who paid the "ultimate" share by dying for this country? When I was growing up in the 1950s, no one talked like this. Every male "father figure" I knew had been somewhere "over there" in World War II. They knew they had been blessed just to be alive.
Down the street, one neighbor's destroyer had been hit by a Kamikazee. His arms were badly burned, not to mention the injury to his soul. Another neighbor's son was one of only six that escaped from a depth-charged submarine in the Pacific. My high school scoutmaster was in the Battle of the Bulge, as was the father of my best friend. My instructor in driver's ed was at Tarawa. My college baskbetball coach was a tail gunner on a B-17 with eight--yes, eight--confirmed kills. My father-in-law served on the carrier Enterprise from 1942 until the end of the war. His brother was also on the Enterprise as a torpedo bomber pilot, and flew more than 50 combat missions. My late friend Carsten Lien almost died while on patrol in the North Pacific. And these are only a few of the brave men and women I knew.
You know what is missing from America today? Humility. Every serious argument we have today is just about money. If I am wrong, the next time opportunity affords, argue for the national parks without bringing money into it. That is what those veterans fought and died for--a country that would know how blessed it is. Who has paid his "fair share"--and then some? They have. We who have never suffered for this country as they did cannot hope to come even close.
Agreed, Al. I'm also born in the late 1940's. My dad was on New Caledonia for two years, one of his brothers was a flying navigator over Korea, and that covered many of the people of that generation. I followed and enlisted for three years, with later another dozen or so in the Guard and Reserve, as well as many years as a volunteer medic/firefighter.
My feeling has always been that writing that blank check to your government for up to the price of your life, hoping it isn't cashed of course but regardless putting yourself on the line, is a major difference maker. I would like to see mandatory national service of a couple of years. It could be as a military member, firefighting, teaching on reservations or whatever. It could be adjusted to accommodate most infirmities. And there should be no way for the rich to buy their way out of it.
The thing isn't the macho testosterone addiction some incorrectly label the military. It is learning in some way or manner that in life there comes a time when one must put the good of the group over the good of the individual. With that, you will get a more informed electorate and a more compassionate country.
RickB thanks for just a great post. It could not be said better my friend.
Rick - I don't agree with you about mandatory national service but no one has more respect for our military than I,. someone who's father is buried in Arlington Cemetery.