UPDATED: Yosemite National Park To Change Historic Lodge Names To Avoid Trademark Fight

Editor's note: This adds comment from DNC Parks & Resorts at Yosemite, additional comments from Yosemite officials.

Yosemite National Park officials, looking to avoid a costly trademark fight with DNC Parks & Resorts at Yosemite, announced Thursday that they would change the names of iconic lodges in the park. The Ahwahnee Hotel, for instance, would be known going forward as the Majestic Yosemite Hotel.

DNC Parks & Resorts officials quickly fired back, charging the Park Service with "using the beloved names of places in Yosemite National Park as a bargaining chip in a legal dispute between DNCY and the NPS involving basic contract rights."

Yosemite officials said they had no option but to change the names with the transition in concessionaires coming March 1, when an Aramark subsidiary, Yosemite Hospitality, LLC, takes over from DNC.

“While it is unfortunate that we must take this action, changing the names of these facilities will help us provide seamless service to the American public during the transition to the new concessioner. Yosemite National Park belongs to the American people,” said Yosemite Superintendent Don Neubacher in a release. “This action will not affect the historic status of the facilities, as they are still important cultural icons to the National Park Service and the public. Our stewardship of these properties is unwavering.”

The new names were chosen in order to minimize the impact on visitors, the park announced, and include:

● Yosemite Lodge at the Falls to become: Yosemite Valley Lodge

● The Ahwahnee to become: The Majestic Yosemite Hotel

● Curry Village to become: Half Dome Village

● Wawona Hotel to become: Big Trees Lodge

● Badger Pass Ski Area to become: Yosemite Ski & Snowboard Area

Dr. Alfred Runte, author of Yosemite: The Embattled Wilderness, and National Parks, the American Experience, was outraged by the Park Service's decision.

“Stephen T. Mather must be rolling in his grave. This is the biggest retreat from the public trust ever exercised by the National Park Service in its history. The Park Service has lost many battles, but never willingly lost them in the pursuit of accommodating business interests," he said in an email. "As the agency’s first director, Stephen T. Mather was hired by the Interior Department to put an end to such foolishness and greed. He did, and in so doing, secured the peoples’ undivided interests in the national parks. Yosemite’s names are the peoples’ names—and no one else’s. The American people will now rightly ask who is running the national parks, and whether those obviously running them into the ground should resign.”

The issue of trademarking words attached to properties in the National Park System arose in 2014 year when the Park Service released a prospectus for a 15-year contract involving concessions at Yosemite. During the process, DNC, which has held the concessions business in Yosemite since 1993, notified the Park Service that it held "intellectual property" rights in the form of trademarks attached to lodgings in the park.

If Delaware North is unsuccessful in bidding for the new contract, the company said it would seek $51 million to relinquish those marks, and other intellectual property, to the new concessionaire. That led the Park Service to say it would allow a concessionaire other than Delaware North to propose name changes to the facilities, which in some cases have been in operation for more than a century under the same name.

DNC did indeed lose the contract.

The government and Delaware North, DNC's parent, have been battling over Yosemite since 2014 at least. After DNC lost the concessions contract, Delaware North filed a $10 million-plus claim against the government last September. In that claim, DNC alleged breach of contract by the Park Service for its failure to require Aramark's subsidiary to purchase DNC's intangible properties after landing the Yosemite contract.

The Park Service had initially inserted an amendment to the concessions contract stating that any new concessionaire, other than DNC, would have to purchase DNC's intangible property, but later withdrew that requirement. However, in a letter dated Dec. 31, 2015, the Park Service again reversed course, and said Aramark would have to purchase DNC's trademark holdings.

Last week the Justice Department, charging that Delaware North Companies seeks to bolster its bottom line by securing trademarks to iconic U.S.-owned properties and then "wildly inflates" their value, asked a federal claims court to toss out DNC Parks & Resort's multi-million-dollar lawsuit against the government. The Justice Department also argued that DNC wrongly was seeking compensation of nearly $15 million for "other assets" in the form of maintenance and improvements it had performed in Yosemite. That work, the government maintained, fell under the concessionaire's "non-compensable maintenance and repair obligations."

DNC officials quickly responded to the government's filing, denying that their valuation of intellectual property was overvalued and accusing the National Park Service of "flip-flopping" when it comes to trademark issues.

DNC officials also said they hoped "NPS and the new concessionaire will not change the names of historic places or venues at Yosemite National Park."

"We purchased these trademarks when we commenced our work in 1993, as required by our contract with NPS, and our only interest is selling them on to the new concessionaire for fair value, a requirement NPS is obligated to enforce," the concessionaire said in its response. "While this disagreement is ongoing we have even offered to license these trademarks, free of any charge, to NPS to avoid any name changes or impact on the park visitor experience."

At Yosemite, spokesman Scott Gediman said Thursday afternoon that the decision to change the names "was a group decision" made with input from Interior Department attorneys and that no one wanted to see a legal battle interrupt lodging in the park.

“We’ve got people with reservations, people planning their trips, we’re 47 days away from the transition," Mr. Gediman said. "It’s not that we didn’t stand up (to preserve the historic names). It’s just that this litigation is ongoing and our commitment is to the American people and keeping these facilities going. In order to do this, that’s why this action was taken. We strongly disagree with the $51 millon that Delaware North has claimed for the trademarks and the other stuff. It’s unfortunate. It’s not something that we’re happy about doing.”

The park spokesman did say that if the Justice Department is successful in derailing Delaware North's trademark claims the historic lodge names could be restored.