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I live near Yosemite National Park and a current trademark dispute has local people upset with an outgoing concessionaire. DNC just lost a bid to continue running concessions in the park. They are demanding $50 million for the names of things like the iconic 20s era Ahwahnee Hotel on the valley floor, Curry Village and even the name of the park. DNC says it was required to buy these trademarks when it won the original contract, and that the next operator is required to do the same.

The National Park Service intends to change the names of various facilities rather than pay the $50 million, though it is trying to keep the name of the park itself.

From what I can gather from the sources linked at the bottom of the page, there is no indication DNC paid specifically for the disputed trademarks. I'm guessing they just got them in the package deal and it would seem they should pass in a similar package deal when they sell the assets to the next concessionaire, Aramark.

This is from DNCs Q&A linked below.

Q4: How much did DNC Yosemite pay for the Curry Company in 1993?
A4: As part of the 1993 bid, the NPS required the successful bidder to pay approximately $61.5 million to purchase the Curry Company. That is the equivalent of approximately $115 million in 2015 dollars.

So all the stuff, including the names, was worth $115 million in today's money meaning the names were 43% of the value? Seems a bit steep.

The locals are pissed off about corporate greed, a sentiment I'm usually dispassionate about, but here it does feel like DNC is abusing the system. It doesn't sit well with me. On the other hand, if they paid for it shouldn't they get their money back plus whatever increased value they've created?

DNC Q&A
LA Times article
Local Paper

Gwaihirsbrother wrote:


DNC Q&A

I am not a contract lawyer. However, from that first link:

The National Park Service (NPS) required us to purchase all assets and assume all liabilities from the previous concessioner, Yosemite Park & Curry Co. (Curry Company), including intangible assets such as trademarks, copyrights, mailing lists and customer history, at a price agreed to in advance by NPS and the Curry Company. Our contract with the NPS requires a successor to buy the trademarks and other intangible property, just as we bought this property from the company before us.
In short, NPS was contractually obligated to require DNC Yosemite to buy the trademarks from Curry Company and NPS is contractually obligated to require Aramark to buy them from DNC Yosemite. The question is solely about receiving the fair value for these assets as required by our contract.

If the contract does indeed say that they are required to sell the names, etc for fair value, then they have all the right in the world to ask for $_____. I have no idea what $______ is, though.

Sounds like a hoot!

It certainly helped muddy the waters of my outrage when I read their Q&A. The original, apparently erroneous, claim I heard was that DNC when they lost the contract trademarked the various iconic place names so they could sell them which seemed a horribly abusive use of trademarks. If DNC's statement is accurate they had to buy them, so they now want to sell them which on its face is reasonable.

There is an smell of pettiness/bitterness/greed about this that I can't shake though. The article from the local paper suggests this company has a shady track record in other, similar situations involving parks.

DNC doesn't say in its Q&A that it paid $X for the trademarks. I find that interesting. My guess is the value of the trademarks wasn't a significant consideration in the original deal, but they are trying to cash in now.

Really the market value probably isn't high. The NPS/new vendors seem content to just rename everything suggesting the asking price is far too high and perhaps there is little to no value for them. People aren't going to stop coming just because the hotel is named something different. The public are the knees that value it and are the ones that suffer so to speak.

Should be easy enough to pick up trademark filings to check who originally filed them.

If the local businesses, park authority etc are upset then the names clearly have significant value,

and the more upset they get then the higher the value anybody independent assessing said value would set it

The park is planning to change all the names rather than pay, well they are willing to pay 3.5 mil rather than 51 mil. Locals are mad, but they aren't going to crowdsource funds to buy the trademark. It seems like the names will change because they aren't valuable to those running the properties, DNC will be holding worthless trademarks, and the public is going to be angry for a while and just have to get used to it.

It's Yosemite that's worth something. Whatever is there is instantly valuable. What you name it doesn't even remotely matter. Fundamentally, the trade marks themselves are worthless. Of course no one is going to pay $51 million for them.