I wrote last year about the legal wrangling between Delaware North (DNC), which held the concessions at Yosemite National Park until the end of February 2016, and the National Parks Service. DNC had held the concession for over 25 years when it lost a tender for continued service to Aramark. But during that time period, DNC had registered as trademarks the names of several iconic Yosemite properties: the Ahwahnee Hotel, Yosemite Lodge, Curry Village, the Badger Pass Ski Area, and the Wawona Hotel among others. So DNC demanded $60 million from NPS/Aramark for the rights to those marks, and when they didn’t get paid, in September 2015 sued for breach of contract. (DNC alleged other issues as well.)
In order to avoid a trademark infringement suit, NPS renamed many of the sites. Hence this past winter I rented cross country skis at the Yosemite Ski & Snowboard Area, and slept at the Yosemite Valley Lodge, as those venues are now called. Although I did ski out to the actual Badger Pass for a nice view of Mount Clark; apparently DNC didn’t try to register marks on the names of the actual geologic and topographic features.
Aramark, for its part, won’t sell clothing that says “Yosemite National Park”. If I weren’t an IP practitioner, I’d think it’s all kinda silly. I still do, actually; see the previous post that explains why.
In March last year NPS moved to have the USPTO transfer the marks in question to NPS, but the USPTO – surprise! – punted and said that since the matter is already being handled before the Court of Federal Claims, it would wait until those proceedings were completed before deciding what to do, if anything. Meanwhile, the proceedings at the CFC continue at their normal snail’s court’s pace. Aramark has now been joined to the suit, and last week the parties presented the court with a joint proposed scheduling order for discovery, according to which discovery would be completed by May 2, 2018, with dispositive motions following discover due by June 1, 2018. Clearly, a trial is still a ways off.
As I noted last year, it seems that the longer this thing drags on, the easier it will be for Aramark to demonstrate that the value in the hotels is not in their names, but their location: given the reports about how crowded Yosemite Valley was this past summer, I’d be shocked if the renamed facilities weren’t full, despite the changed names of the venues. Which would show that that the marks themselves aren’t worth anything close to the $60,000,000 price tag that DNC is trying to place on them.