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#193071 - 01/07/16 11:20 AM Please boycott Delaware North
balzaccom Online   content
member

Registered: 04/06/09
Posts: 2232
Loc: Napa, CA
If you know anywhere that Delaware North is trying to stay open for business in the USA, please let us know, so that we can advocate a boycott of their services.

What jerks!

The U.S. Justice Department has responded publicly for the first time to the lawsuit that DNC filed over the trademark of Yosemite iconic names like the Ahwahnee and Curry Village:

“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.

“DNCY’s parent company has apparently embarked on a business model whereby it collects trademarks to the names of iconic property owned by the United States,” Justice Department attorney John H. Robertson wrote.

The parent company, Buffalo, N.Y.-based Delaware North, also has a concession at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and “has a trademark application for the name ‘Space Shuttle Atlantis,’ ” Robertson pointedly noted.”


Read more here: http://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/article53172300.html
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#193073 - 01/07/16 02:35 PM Re: Please boycott Delaware North [Re: balzaccom]
Rick_D Offline
member

Registered: 01/06/02
Posts: 2939
Loc: NorCal
Almost comical in their evilness. Somebody's part will be played by Joe Pesci.

Quote:
Nice little park you'se got dere; be a shame if somthin' happened to it. Now why don't you go get your shine box?


Hopefully a judge tells them to take a long walk on a short corporate pier, but in case their claim is upheld I can think of about a dozen ways to misspell "Ahwahnee” and guarantee nobody will notice.

"Did you trademark Ahh-wahnee?"
_________________________
--Rick

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#193077 - 01/07/16 07:17 PM Re: Please boycott Delaware North [Re: Rick_D]
bluefish Offline
member

Registered: 06/05/13
Posts: 680
Disgusting, greedy pigs.
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#193183 - 01/15/16 12:27 AM Re: Please boycott Delaware North [Re: Rick_D]
Rick_D Offline
member

Registered: 01/06/02
Posts: 2939
Loc: NorCal
Good grief, I wasn't especially serious about the name change thing.

Quote:
In an extraordinary move, the National Park Service announced Thursday that it was changing the names of The Ahwahnee hotel, Curry Village and other beloved park sites. The move, officials say, was forced on them by an intellectual property dispute with the park’s departing concessions company.

“We feel we have to change the names,” Yosemite spokesman Scott Gediman said in an interview Thursday. “With the ongoing litigation, we feel this step is necessary.”

The famed Ahwahnee is slated to become The Majestic Yosemite Hotel. Curry Village will become Half Dome Village, and the Wawona Hotel will become Big Trees Lodge.


Sigh....
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#193184 - 01/15/16 07:54 AM Re: Please boycott Delaware North [Re: Rick_D]
bluefish Offline
member

Registered: 06/05/13
Posts: 680
I'll have to applaud the NPS for making this move to not waste the millions of taxpayers dollars. Having never availed myself of any of the amenities in Yosemite, though I've spent a good amount of time there, I don't have much attachment to those names. However, I thought about how the Xanterra Corp. that runs Phantom Ranch in the Grand Canyon could do the same. I couldn't imagine Mary Coulter's architectural genius being named something she didn't wish. I hope from here on out, federal lawyers will construct ironclad exclusions to this kind of nonsensical garbage suit. Intellectual property is just a drop in the bucket, though, when you look at the overall picture of the concession morass.
http://cheapmotelsandahotplate.org/2012/06/01/wage-slaves-in-our-national-parks/
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#193191 - 01/15/16 12:12 PM Re: Please boycott Delaware North [Re: balzaccom]
GrumpyGord Online   content
member

Registered: 01/05/02
Posts: 945
Loc: Michigan
That is only part of the story. Aramark, the new concessionaire, is also a bunch of crooks. They had the contract for prison food in Michigan and had maggots in the food, dirty conditions, sexual assault on prisoners and a whole list of misdeeds. It took Michigan years to get rid of the crooks. Granted that is a fault of the Michigan government as well as the vendor. How do we the people get suckered into these stupid contracts by government "leaders"? We keep reading about government contracts which were stupid in the first place and cost the people a lot of money to get out of. We have administrators on contract who are obviously incompetent or crooks and we keep paying them for doing nothing or give them a big buy out to get rid of them.

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#193192 - 01/15/16 12:56 PM Re: Please boycott Delaware North [Re: GrumpyGord]
Rick_D Offline
member

Registered: 01/06/02
Posts: 2939
Loc: NorCal
Great points. I'd love to see a non-profit run the concessions in partnership with the NPS rather than this disruptive intermittent RFP via the Federal Register process we're stuck with. I don't find we, the citizens, are well served by the current model.

These humps are making me miss Curry Corp--words I never imagined myself typing.
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#193198 - 01/15/16 02:45 PM Re: Please boycott Delaware North [Re: Rick_D]
GrumpyGord Online   content
member

Registered: 01/05/02
Posts: 945
Loc: Michigan
The big problem I believe is that today's conventional wisdom is that the private sector can always do anything better than the government. There are some things that the private sector can do well but it requires competition and many of the things now being outsourced to the private sector have no competition. Concessions in the national parks are a good example. The vendor can charge whatever they want and perform poorly but there are no other options so they stay in place until the end of the contract. The problem with many government run programs is that there is no oversight and poorly written and/or managed contracts. Locally we have had city managers, school administrators, mayors etc where performance of duties was either extremely poor or even criminal and there does not seem to be any way to get rid of them except to pay off the contract or let them do nothing until the contract ends. Contracts, both public or private need performance clauses which allow for dismissal for poor performance.

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#193199 - 01/15/16 02:57 PM Re: Please boycott Delaware North [Re: GrumpyGord]
Rick_D Offline
member

Registered: 01/06/02
Posts: 2939
Loc: NorCal
True enough. A non-profit concession firm with a managing board of directors comprising interested, involved parties with real-time interaction with NPS could run it with a customer focus and not as a profit center beholden to shareholders and the next quarter's P&L sheet.

And I could have a pony and three month's vacation every year. smile
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#193212 - 01/16/16 11:34 AM Re: Please boycott Delaware North [Re: Rick_D]
balzaccom Online   content
member

Registered: 04/06/09
Posts: 2232
Loc: Napa, CA
More on this story...

Delaware North, the company that has done a mediocre job running the concessions at Yosemite Park has now lost the contract to a competitor, and has now announced that it is asking to be compensated for the loss of the equity it has created in the brands names of Yosemite--such names as Wawona Hotel, Yosemite Lodge at the Falls, Badger Pass Ski Area, Curry Village and the Ahwahnee Hotel. (This list updated for increased accuracy--you can't be too careful with these SOBs!)

And isn't it convenient that they don't have names...they are just the impersonal corporate entity Delaware North? So just in case you were wondering, here is a link to their "executives" webpage. Yep. All those smiling faces are the ones who made the decision to force you, the American People, to buy back the names of the treasured icons of your national parks. At a huge profit for them. http://www.delawarenorth.com/about/senior-management

y the way, the photo on this page shows an anonymous individual holding his arm up, welcoming the money that he expects to be falling from the sky as a result of this bloodsucking scheme. The NPS has decided to rename those facilities, rather than pay ransom for them to Delaware North. It makes you proud to be an American and part of the system that gave birth to Delaware North.

By the way, if you'd like to do so, you can do a web search for Delaware North to find their corporate email address so that you can send them a note to tell them exactly what you think of them. We did that. You can also get a list of the other concessions that Delaware North runs, so that you can boycott them or make their lives less pleasant. We've done that, too. Here's a link to the whole sad story: http://news.yahoo.com/yosemite-park-landmarks-names-amid-trademark-tussle-070827436.html;_ylt=AwrSbnSWbppWfOAAoIJXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTByNWU4cGh1BGNvbG8DZ3ExBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--


Edited by balzaccom (01/16/16 11:35 AM)
_________________________
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#193225 - 01/17/16 09:29 PM Re: Please boycott Delaware North [Re: balzaccom]
ndsol Offline
member

Registered: 04/16/02
Posts: 678
Loc: Houston, Texas
In 1993 when Delaware North acquired the concessionaire contract for Yosemite, it had to buy all of the associated intellectual property. So there is no question that it owns all of those names and is due just compensation from the federal government if those names are to continue to be used. The only question is how much those names are currently worth. Instead of going to court to determine what the amount would be, the Feds decided to just rename everything, which is their prerogative. So I am not sure why a boycott is called for as this is just a question of how much money would be owed if the names are to be purchased. The Feds were the ones that decided not to find out what that number would be.

As for services, it is not much different than what captive audiences have to deal with at ballparks or airports. At least with the National Parks, we generally don't have to use the concessionaire's services if we don't want to.

As for those that think the Feds can do a better job, I am reminded of another intellectual property issue. When AMTRAK took over all of the passenger trains, Santa Fe said that it could still use the name Super Chief for its Chicago-LA train. But just three years later, Santa Fe revoked that license because of a decline in the quality of service by AMTRAK.


Edited by ndsol (01/17/16 09:37 PM)

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#193239 - 01/18/16 09:15 PM Re: Please boycott Delaware North [Re: ndsol]
Rick_D Offline
member

Registered: 01/06/02
Posts: 2939
Loc: NorCal
You may have missed the part where they surreptitiously trademarked previously untrademarked names. Quite different than acquisition of intellectual property as part of a vendor contract, not to mention Curry Corp would have held the name trademarks prior to Delaware North, had they ever been in play. This is simple theft from US citizens, not dissimilar to what Y'all Qaeda is trying to pull in rural Oregon at the moment. Except the tailored suits.

As to a comparison against Amtrack, uh, what? No idea how that applies here and in any case, Amtrack would be doing just fine if they weren't constantly under assault from the sociopath wing of congress and didn't have junior track rights to every freight they encounter on shared lines. We don't have superior passenger rail because it's not a priority, not because it can't be run well.
_________________________
--Rick

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#193240 - 01/18/16 10:11 PM Re: Please boycott Delaware North [Re: Rick_D]
ndsol Offline
member

Registered: 04/16/02
Posts: 678
Loc: Houston, Texas
Rick,

"You may have missed the part" as I noted previously where Delaware North was required by the NPS to purchase the intellectual property back in 1993. That would have included Curry Corp.

How does one "surreptitiously trademark previously untrademarked names"? They had to trademark the names with the Feds, so how could it be "surreptitiously" when the entity you are accusing of being surreptitious is filing with the entity you are alleging it is trying to keep being seen by? Not only that, but it is a matter of public record.

Not even the Feds claim, "This is simple theft from US citizens, not dissimilar to what Y'all Qaeda is trying to pull in rural Oregon at the moment. Except the tailored suits." And to compare what is happening in Oregon to Al Qaeda only serves to minimize the atrocities inflicted on the victims of that terrorist group.

So let's look at the other side:

1. DNCY offered to license the trademarks, free of any charge, to allow NPS or the new concessionaire at Yosemite to use the trademarks and avoid any name changes or impact on the park visitor experience while the dispute is being settled by the courts.

2. The NPS in 1993 required DNCY, as the new concessionaire at Yosemite, to purchase the assets of the previous concessionaire, including its intellectual property, at a cost of $115 million in today's dollars along with the assumption of $40 million in liabilities. That included several valuable trademarked names such as The Ahwahnee. In turn, the DNCY contract requires the NPS to have the new concessionaire buy all of DNCY's property, including its intellectual property. The NPS recently reaffirmed this in a December 29, 2015 letter from the U.S. Department of the Interior (retracting NPS's earlier position that intellectual property was not included).

3. DNCY has not "grossly overvalued" the trademarks. DNCY had two independent appraisals of the intellectual property – which includes trademarked names, websites and customer databases – performed by reputable third-party experts. The valuation results of those separate appraisals are very similar. Again, it should be noted the intellectual property represented a portion of the property purchased by DNCY for $115 million in today's dollars.

4. Months prior to the bid submission deadline, DNCY shared its appraisals with NPS. After NPS disputed DNCY's appraisals and failed to share its own appraisal, DNCY offered to enter binding arbitration to set a fair value for the intellectual property. DNCY also repeatedly offered to allow NPS to meet independently with DNCY's appraisers so NPS would understand the appraisal methodologies. NPS refused. Only after being ignored and then rebuffed, DNCY filed a protest with the federal Government Accountability Office requesting that NPS work with DNCY to reach a fair value to include in the bidding prospectus.

5. It is common practice for concessionaires to use trademarks at federal locations. This is done to safeguard the treasured names, words and symbols from improper use by entities not under contract with the government. The NPS is well aware of this, having required DNCY to purchase trademarks from the previous concessionaire in 1993. NPS also knew that DNCY registered additional trademarks because the government accepted DNCY's trademark registration applications.

6. The National Park Service has repeatedly flip-flopped on the issue of intellectual property. During the RFP process, it at first completely ignored the issue. Then in December 2014 NPS notified all potential bidders that the new concessionaire would be required to purchase the intangible assets of the existing concessionaire, DNCY. Then, after more than eight months and after selecting Aramark for the award, in August 2015 NPS sent a letter to DNCY stating that it had decided that it wouldn't require the winning bidder to purchase the intangible assets. Four months later on December 29, 2015 (and after DNCY commenced litigation over the issue), NPS retracted its August, 2015 letter and reaffirmed that the winning bidder must purchase intangible assets such as trademarks, customer database, and domain names from DNCY.

7. DNCY was hopeful that the NPS and the new concessionaire would not change the names of historic places or venues at Yosemite National Park. DNCY purchased these trademarks when it commenced its work in 1993, as required by its contract with NPS, and its interest is selling them on to the new concessionaire for fair value, a requirement NPS is obligated to enforce. That is why DNCY offered to license these trademarks, free of any charge, to NPS to avoid any name changes or impact on the park visitor experience while the disagreement between DNCY and NPS heads toward resolution in the courts.

As to Amtrak (not "Amtrack"), the point was to show that the government seldom performs services better than the private sector. It was about the quality of service and not about "being constantly under assault from the sociopath wing of congress". As for Amtrak's "junior track rights to every freight they encounter", that is not only false, but has no relationship to the quality of service decline that Amtrak promulgated, which prompted Santa Fe to revoke the Super Chief trademark use by Amtrak.

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#193253 - 01/19/16 02:27 PM Re: Please boycott Delaware North [Re: ndsol]
Rick_D Offline
member

Registered: 01/06/02
Posts: 2939
Loc: NorCal
Compare and contrast.

Quote:
I had a conversation with Therrin Protze at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex today. Delaware North is the company that operates the Visitors Complex. He told me that they have trademarked the logo and phrase "Space Shuttle Atlantis" as part of their overall contract with NASA that allows them to run the Visitor's center. This is done to protect their ability to present NASA vehicles and exhibits and is covered by their contract with NASA. He told me that if, at any time in the future, Delaware North is no longer the operator/contractor for the Visitor's Complex, that they will simply hand the registration of these trademarks over to the new contractor at no cost to anyone including NASA. This situation is separate from a similar trademark issue currently being disputed with Delaware North over Yosemite National Park names that were trademarked. I am told that NASA will be issuing a statement in the next day or so on this matter.

[emphasis mine]

This is a predatory business practice at taxpayer's potential considerable expense. Full stop.
_________________________
--Rick

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#193255 - 01/19/16 02:54 PM Re: Please boycott Delaware North [Re: ndsol]
billstephenson Offline
Moderator

Registered: 02/07/07
Posts: 3917
Loc: Ozark Mountains in SW Missouri
You bring up a lot of great points and shed a lot of light on this issue. It kind of reminds me of military contracts that go over budget. The corporations always claim it's not their fault, and the politicians always blow some steam before agreeing to pay more, and the media always complains about the waste for a news cycle, but no one changes anything and the taxpayers always foot the bill.

One might imagine it's all theater and it is always intended to bilk taxpayers. It is taxpayers, after all, who will pay these trademark fees, and they will pay for them again next time these venues change hands. In that light it looks like quite the scam.
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#193268 - 01/20/16 11:07 AM Re: Please boycott Delaware North [Re: Rick_D]
ndsol Offline
member

Registered: 04/16/02
Posts: 678
Loc: Houston, Texas
Rick,

So your contention to “compare and contrast” is that Delaware North is willing to give the trademarks back to the NPS at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor’s Complex, but not at Yosemite? That would be incongruous. It would also be comparing apples to oranges.

The trademarks that were to be sold were not ones such as “Yosemite”, “El Capitan” and “Half Dome”. Otherwise, the NPS would have also changed those names, but didn’t. That would have been apples to apples.

“This is a predatory business practice at taxpayer's potential considerable expense. Full stop.” How is it predatory?

It’s not the taxpayers paying the fees unless the Feds want to acquire the assets not currently owned. It would have been the successful bidder on the concessionaire contracts that would have been required to buy them.

The assets at issue were not owned by the Feds. As such, Delaware North’s Fifth Amendment rights would be violated in the scenario of the Feds seizing those Delaware North-owned trademarks at issue without just compensation.

As shown by many in this thread, although the contract called for Delaware North to get paid for what they had to buy, they are going to be the bad guy as all of these name changes will not be popular with visitors to Yosemite National Park.

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#193272 - 01/20/16 02:14 PM Re: Please boycott Delaware North [Re: ndsol]
billstephenson Offline
Moderator

Registered: 02/07/07
Posts: 3917
Loc: Ozark Mountains in SW Missouri
Quote:
As shown by many in this thread, although the contract called for Delaware North to get paid for what they had to buy, they are going to be the bad guy as all of these name changes will not be popular with visitors to Yosemite National Park.


Your points are valid in a legal sense, but many are invalid in a common sense.

As Rick and I have pointed out, it is the public that actually pays for all this. Any corporation that has to purchase those rights will pass that cost onto their consumers who already paid for them when the previous owner adjusted the prices they charged to cover those costs.

I'd bet heavy that all the corporations that bid on these contracts also donate to political parties and candidates and lobby them while their in office as well. If this is the case they are all milking us like cows and I just don't have any respect for that.

As far as the name changes go, the answer to this is obvious. The public should own the trademarks to all of those, and grant the rights to the lease holder for the duration of the lease.
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#193285 - 01/21/16 03:15 PM Re: Please boycott Delaware North [Re: billstephenson]
ndsol Offline
member

Registered: 04/16/02
Posts: 678
Loc: Houston, Texas
Quote:
As Rick and I have pointed out, it is the public that actually pays for all this. Any corporation that has to purchase those rights will pass that cost onto their consumers who already paid for them when the previous owner adjusted the prices they charged to cover those costs.


Who really gets hurt are the visitors to the park. Who benefits are the taxpayers. The reason is that the prior concession contract required an off the top payment to the Feds. The number I saw in the Congressional testimony when Delaware North was the successful bidder back in 1993 was over 20% of its revenues (not profits) were projected to be paid to the Feds. That is a significant hurdle and one that increases costs to visitors who are basically captive.

Quote:
As far as the name changes go, the answer to this is obvious. The public should own the trademarks to all of those, and grant the rights to the lease holder for the duration of the lease.

Let’s look at just one of the properties, the Ahwahnee Hotel. It was privately constructed, financed and owned when the concessionaire contract for Yosemite was being bid and then won by Delaware North in 1993. At that point, the Feds could have readily bought the trademarks and leased them as part of the concessionaire contract, but that would have entailed a cash outlay. So instead the rights went to Delaware North as the Feds required it to assume all the assets and liabilities of Yosemite Park & Curry Company (a private company) and to deed the real property to the NPS.

So in order for “the public should own the trademarks to all of those”, the Feds have to pay just compensation (a requirement under the Fifth Amendment), which they are now refusing to do. On top of that, it appears that the concession contract required that the successor to Delaware North would pay for the intellectual property. Now that won’t happen. So a strong argument can be made that it is the Feds that are in breach.

I have found that since the concessionaires most often have a monopoly and have to pay a large percentage of revenues to the Feds, once the contract is let after the bidding, the competition motive is gone and service suffers. In addition, if there is no benefit at the end of the concession contract, then the investments made have more of a tendency to have a life expectancy that ends coterminous with the lease unless the Feds require certain capital investments. That means at the end of the contract, the facilities may not see the improvements that would have occurred under a different contracting scheme.

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#193299 - 01/22/16 02:02 PM Re: Please boycott Delaware North [Re: ndsol]
billstephenson Offline
Moderator

Registered: 02/07/07
Posts: 3917
Loc: Ozark Mountains in SW Missouri
Quote:
Who really gets hurt are the visitors to the park. Who benefits are the taxpayers.


That's true, but for the most part they are one and the same, and I don't really feel too sorry for them because they choose to go there.

Years ago I made the drive to Yellowstone. I had no reservations and wasn't familiar enough with the park to realize there'd be no place for me to camp. The prices for rooms there, however, were so far above my budget that I could've never afforded a room there anyway and it was very clear to me that that lodge was built for the upper classes and not for me. They didn't even have a rough campsite for me there anywhere on that gazillion acres of public land.

So, I don't mind a 20% on revenues in places like that on public land. I don't think we need private corporations running those places though. I think it's fairly well proven they don't really do a great job of it. Not that one couldn't, but that they don't.

On the other hand, I don't think the government would do any better, so I really don't have a solution. The only real solution is for people who do work and manage these places to do a better job of it, and the fact that they don't is indicative of the real problem.
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#193303 - 01/22/16 02:37 PM Re: Please boycott Delaware North [Re: billstephenson]
ndsol Offline
member

Registered: 04/16/02
Posts: 678
Loc: Houston, Texas
Given the Tax Policy Center estimates that over 45% of households will not pay federal income tax in 2015, the overlap may not be as great as one might initially think.

I would say that the NPS concessionaire policy is perhaps regressive, but then again, as you readily point out, the price of lodging in the park system is not for the faint of heart. One place there is no overlap is the foreign visitors to the parks. So I guess that is a benefit for the U.S.

The issue is the government-institutionalized monopoly and the tight supply relative to the high demand for rooms. As long there is more demand than supply, the pricing will be higher than if competition existed.

We were in Big Bend over Christmas and the only lodging in the park was booked months in advance. Even front country campsites in the Chisos were full.

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#193380 - 01/28/16 07:21 PM Re: Please boycott Delaware North [Re: ndsol]
ndsol Offline
member

Registered: 04/16/02
Posts: 678
Loc: Houston, Texas
On Monday, Delaware North filed a brief seeking damages for what it sees as a government attempt to "create a public outcry that would force" it to relinquish its property at a cut rate. Remember, on January 2nd, Delaware North sent the park service a letter stipulating that Aramark could use the old hotel names royalty-free pending a court decision.

Based on the title of, and many posts on, this thread, damages are not speculative.

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#193381 - 01/28/16 11:05 PM Re: Please boycott Delaware North [Re: ndsol]
aimless Online   content
Moderator

Registered: 02/05/03
Posts: 3292
Loc: Portland, OR
If I were a lawyer I would write a brief arguing that the National Park Service is not capable of "creating a public outcry". Only the public can create a public outcry. If the NPS did not in any way misrepresent the facts of the case to the public, then it is guiltless in any resulting damage, for it would be the actions of the plaintiffs themselves which are the cause of the damage.

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#193382 - 01/28/16 11:27 PM Re: Please boycott Delaware North [Re: aimless]
Rick_D Offline
member

Registered: 01/06/02
Posts: 2939
Loc: NorCal
Heh, well put. smile

Here's hoping if it goes to court that Delaware North calls zombie Ayn Rand to testify on their behalf. This aggression on a helpless corporation will not stand, man! Moochers will not be tolerated.

Cheers,
_________________________
--Rick

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#193385 - 01/29/16 08:53 AM Re: Please boycott Delaware North [Re: ndsol]
ndsol Offline
member

Registered: 04/16/02
Posts: 678
Loc: Houston, Texas
If I light a match and then yell “Fire” in a crowded movie theater, would I “misrepresent the facts of the case to the public”? That would create a “public outcry” just like the NPS did.

In this thread, no one has posted what the Feds stated other than, “'DNCY’s parent company has apparently embarked on a business model whereby it collects trademarks to the names of iconic property owned by the United States,' Justice Department attorney John H. Robertson wrote. The parent company, Buffalo, N.Y.-based Delaware North, also has a concession at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and 'has a trademark application for the name ‘Space Shuttle Atlantis,’ ' Robertson pointedly noted.” Those statements are disingenuous at best.

1. The NPS in 1993 required DNCY, as the new concessionaire at Yosemite, to purchase the assets of the previous concessionaire, including its intellectual property. That included trademarked names such as The Ahwahnee, which was privately constructed, financed and owned when the concessionaire contract for Yosemite was being bid and then won by DNCY. In turn, the DNCY contract requires the NPS to have the new concessionaire buy all of DNCY's property, including its intellectual property. The NPS reaffirmed this in a December 29, 2015 letter from the U.S. Department of the Interior.

2. DNCY offered to license the trademarks, free of any charge, to allow NPS or the new concessionaire at Yosemite to use the trademarks and avoid any name changes or impact on the park visitor experience while the dispute is being settled by the courts.

I am a lawyer and can see the damages to DNCY if their case is proved. Many of the statements on this thread are indicative of those damages:

“Please boycott Delaware North”

“What jerks.”

“Hopefully a judge tells them to take a long walk on a short corporate pier”

“Disgusting, greedy pigs.”

“You can also get a list of the other concessions that Delaware North runs, so that you can boycott them or make their lives less pleasant. We've done that, too.”

"This is a predatory business practice at taxpayer's potential considerable expense. Full stop."

“This is simple theft from US citizens, not dissimilar to what Y'all Qaeda is trying to pull in rural Oregon at the moment.”

An article by Kevin Drum of Mother Jones (not exactly a big fan of big corporations) gives some gloss to this controversy:

Quote:
I wrote a post yesterday about a New York company that claims it owns the trademark to various locations at Yosemite National Park. Based on the story I read, this seemed obviously outrageous, and that was the tone I took.

But that was probably wrong. I ended up looking into this issue a little more deeply, and it turns out that the whole thing goes back several years and is actually a fairly pedestrian contract dispute.

[snip]

It turns out there's nothing inherently outrageous about Delaware North owning some of these trademarks, as even the Park Service admits.


Edited by ndsol (01/29/16 09:09 AM)

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#193388 - 01/29/16 02:08 PM Re: Please boycott Delaware North [Re: ndsol]
aimless Online   content
Moderator

Registered: 02/05/03
Posts: 3292
Loc: Portland, OR
If I light a match and then yell “Fire” in a crowded movie theater, would I “misrepresent the facts of the case to the public”? That would create a “public outcry” just like the NPS did.

This is an argument from analogy. Such arguments are only as strong as the resemblance between the things being analogized. I would say this situation in no way resembles a crowded theater, where the patrons would be at imminent risk of death should a fire break out, and the news stories I read did not "yell" at me, nor consist of a single highly inflammatory word implying imminent fatal danger, and finally, none of the news stories were written by the NPS and so are not a good indicator of what the NPS actually wrote about the dispute in their news release and they should not be held liable for the misunderstandings or oversimplifications of others. Given all this, I'd say the quality of your analogy is very poor and misleading.


Edited by aimless (01/29/16 02:23 PM)
Edit Reason: toned down

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