Yosemite concessionaire wants $44 mil. for trademarked park names
By Michael Doyle, McClatchy News Service
Yosemite National Park’s former concessionaire surprised federal officials by quietly trademarking high-profile park names and then “grossly” overvaluing the intellectual property in an unjustified bid for millions of dollars, government lawyers contend in a new legal filing this week.
With an aggressive, 25-page lawsuit response that foreshadows more maneuvering to come, the Justice Department publicly asserts for the first time that the former Yosemite concessionaire proposed an “improper and wildly inflated” value for the trademarked park names.
The company, DNC Parks & Resorts at Yosemite Inc., demanded to be paid for the trademarks it valued at $44 million. The National Park Service, by contrast, said the trademarks for such park names as “The Ahwahnee” hotel were worth only $1.63 million.
These names were used way before DNC got the concessions – as a concession that basically rented the facilities from the government, how were they ever even allowed to trademark the names to begin with? It seems like they should get nothing for the names, they belong to the federal government and in turn to the public!