Delaware North Atlantis Trademark Story (Update)
Yosemite to Rename Several Iconic Places, Outside
“Bid goodbye to Yosemite’s familiar Ahwahnee hotel, Yosemite Lodge, the Wawona Hotel, Curry Village, and Badger Pass ski areaor their names, anyway. The National Park Service said today it will rename many well-known spots in Yosemite, as part of an ongoing legal dispute with an outgoing concessionaire that has trademarked many names in the world-famous park.”
Yosemite Forced to Rename All Its Hotels Due to an Opportunistic Intellectual Property Battle, Gizmodo
“Concessionaire Delaware North, which previously ran The Ahwahnee, Curry Village, and other properties at Yosemite, claims it was forced to purchase the intellectual property of the properties it operated, including the names, in 1993. Now Delaware North has lost the park contract to competitor Aramark and wants to be paid $50 million for the naming rights.”
Keith’s 14 January update: I am told that NASA will NOT be issuing a statement after all with regard to Trademarks held for “space shuttle atlantis” by Delaware North – the same company that ran services at Yosemite and still runs the KSC Visitor’s Center.
Yosemite concessionaire wants $44 million for trademarked park names, Fresno Bee
“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. The company declined to comment Tuesday.”
Keith’s 6 January note: This is just pathetic. Delaware North already extracts huge sums of money from taxpayers to see billions of dollar’s worth of spacecraft that they’ve already paid for with their tax dollars. Then NASA gives them a space shuttle – and now these people are crass enough to try and trademark “Space Shuttle Atlantis”? So … if this trademark is awarded will NASA have to change its websites to say Space Shuttle Atlantis™ every time this spacecraft is mentioned?
Keith’s update: As NASAWatch reader Tom Matula noted Delaware North was just sent a notice of abandonment for their Space Shuttle Atlantis trademark application by the Patent Office because they have not used the trademark in business. Delaware North appealed for a whole bunch of extensions but then stopped responding, so it would seem. However these other two USPTO entries state that the same Trademark is “live” 4837151 (image) and 4507602 (words “space shuttle atlantis”).
Keith’s 8 January update: 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.
Did title to Atlantis actually pass to Delaware North, Keith, if you know?
I would take issue with you on an ancillary point. It’s true that we paid for Kennedy- I mean to use the term inclusively- but it is also true that managing crowds, designing and building interpretive centers, arranging space artifacts in the best way, and similar efforts have been handled by DN in a productive way. NASA certainly is no more able to manage what is essentially a theme park than the Forestry Service is able to manage hotels. And DN has invested heavily at Kennedy to support those activities.
Isn’t it possible to gain limited trademark protection that covers limited situations- in other words, preventing another company from, say, building a replica of Atlanta and then setting up a competing display?
Calling all lawyers…
I don’t think title to the specific property will have any bearing? If the Defense Department passed along title to a ship that went to a museum, would it become illegal to use the name of that ship on a T-shirt commemorating it’s historic battle?
Do a Google on Space Shuttle Atlantis T-shirts. Is Delaware North going to pretend that now the bazillion sellers of these T-shirts all have to get a license and give Delaware North a nickel for every T-shirt sold?
This is just ridiculous on Delaware North’s part, as it’s unlikely to get such a trademark approved, or have it result in any income should it be.
I should have been clearer. Keith posted “NASA gives them a space shuttle”– I wondered if that’s actually true (probably not, which doesn’t change really the point of Keith’s post; I just wondered).
I should also have been clearer on the second point: what’s to keep me from opening a ‘space museum’ just down the road from Kennedy? And building replicas of all the cool space hardware, labeling them Endeavor, etc.?
Trademark applications are subject to lengthy and often expensive searches. If the do gain the trademark, who’s to say it’s not worth $44 million?
Based on the story in the Bee, it looks like the company is trying to protect itself from loss of the contract by inflating its costs. The agreement likely allows the company to recoup sunk money in the event of a cancellation or failure to extend.
There’s a lot more to this story.
as long as you label it a replica you are safe I thought .. you are not trying to pass it off as the real one.?
He might be quite safe. Misspelling is a common way to get or avoid trademarks. Technically, I think OV-105 is “Endeavour”, with the British spelling after Cook’s ship, rather than “Endeavor”, the American spelling. Or maybe it’s the other way around. In any case, the trademark would only apply to one spelling.
I thought that spacecraft like this remain property of the US Government and are technically on loan for display.
I can’t wait to see it in person, but from photos, I will say the work they did to display Atlantis is really well done.
I get choked up when I see the presentation going into the Atlantis exhibit — all the hard work and innovation that went into creating something cutting edge — all thrown away so we can return to Apollo-era rockets and capsules.
The shuttle was a case our Know-How exceeding our Know-Why. It failed in virtually every way.
It was a vast blackhole that drained money and time and killed its crew every 50 flights or so. Good riddance.
Sorta like JourneyToMars, which will soak up even more $$$ and likely cost astronaut lives.
More specifically, SLS/Orion. We were very lucky not to lose a Saturn V due to its very limited test program before flying manned missions on it. We’re repeating that with SLS/Orion and crossing our fingers yet again.
We have far more experience with the launch vehicles to be used for commercial crew than we will have with SLS when it flies with a manned Orion on top.
It failed virtually in every way. Really? The record of achievements say different.
Granted, we should have improved upon the design as it went along, but it will be at least 100 years before we see a machine capable of doing what the Space Shuttle did on the scale that it did.
The Shuttle was a very interesting and successful experimental vehicle. The problem is that that is not what was planned for, not what it was advertised as, not where the budget was set, and not why the program was run for so long after the experimental data had pretty well been long since gleaned.
What won’t be available in less than a century??
It will not be any hundred years. SpaceX will build MCT which will have more capability than anything ever built thus far.
Name me a better human space vehicle.
Yes, “better” is an objective term. But I still challenge you.
Every 50 flights or so….Well, spaceflight is dangerous. And it’s going to be for a while…
Most of what it did was haul cargo, at $1 1/2 BILLION per flight. It was a black hole that sucked the life out of human spaceflight.
It met virtually none of its intended purposes, and its scope was repeatedly narrowed.
and it killed someone every 10 flights.
For taxiing humans, much as I hate to say it, the soyuz did OK.
NASA administrator says space shuttle was a mistake
The space shuttle and International Space Station — nearly the whole of the U.S. manned space program for the past three decades — were mistakes, NASA chief Michael Griffin said Tuesday.
NASA chief Michael Griffin on the space shuttle: “It is now commonly accepted that was not the right path.”
In a meeting with USA TODAY’s editorial board, Griffin said NASA lost its way in the 1970s, when the agency ended the Apollo moon missions in favor of developing the shuttle and space station, which can only orbit Earth.
“It is now commonly accepted that was not the right path,” Griffin said. “We are now trying to change the path while doing as little damage as we can.”
The shuttle has cost the lives of 14 astronauts since the first flight in 1981. Roger Pielke Jr., a space policy expert at the University of Colorado, estimates that NASA has spent about $150 billion on the program since its inception in 1971. The total cost of the space station by the time it’s finished — in 2010 or later — may exceed $100 billion, though other nations will bear some of that.
… Griffin has made clear in previous statements that he regards the shuttle and space station as misguided. He told the Senate earlier this year that the shuttle was “inherently flawed” and that the space station was not worth “the expense, the risk and the difficulty” of flying humans to space.
But since he became NASA administrator, Griffin hasn’t been so blunt about the two programs.
Asked Tuesday whether the shuttle had been a mistake, Griffin said, “My opinion is that it was. … It was a design which was extremely aggressive and just barely possible.” Asked whether the space station had been a mistake, he said, “Had the decision been mine, we would not have built the space station we’re building in the orbit we’re building it in.”
Joe Rothenberg, head of NASA’s manned space programs from 1995 to 2001, defended the programs for providing lessons about how to operate in space. But he conceded that “in hindsight, there may have been other ways.”
About the only positive thing I can say about the shuttle- aside from the sheer audacity the machine represents, the stunning efforts of ground crew, and surely the beauty of the bird in flight- is this: the program attempted to discard the folly of single-use hardware.
In a perfect world a reusable craft would achieve orbit, where it would rendezvous with interplanetary spacecraft.
I was less impressed by that presentation, and some of the other exhibits. It was all about how 100% wonderful the Shuttles were. I would have liked it more if it were a bit more honest: A technological trimph which did great things, but wasn’t perfect and didn’t end up producing the planned low cost, frequent access to space. But that’s a matter of taste and opinion; I can understand why they set it up in the way they did.
It is. Atlantis is displayed at a raised level and turned both in pitch and roll. That not only gives a good view of all sides of the vehicle, but is also nicely dramatic. I was a bit disappointed when, after seeing Atlantis, I saw how the Smithsonian was displaying Discovery. It’s all-wheels on the ground, and there are enough other things in the gallery that I had a hard time getting a good, overall view. Great view of the front from one place. Great view of the tail from another place. But I couldn’t find anywhere to get a good, unobstructed view of the whole orbiter.
Going off target, I was shocked at the Smithsonian when I accidently came across the Enola Gay B-29 just matter-of-factly parked amidst ordinary aircraft, almost hidden, and with minimal documentation. It appears that it was cowardly hidden to avoid the screams caused by its original display, which showed what it did.
This machine changed the world and it is history.
There are those who say that a demonstration of the bomb- pulverizing an island near Japan, for instance- would have been a proper first move by the US in advance of bombing civilians.
It’s an easy argument to make from the vantage of 2016. On the other hand, war hysteria is not so far away- the country experienced a version of it in 2001.
I was not justifying nor condemning the bombing. The bombing was both to frighten the Japanese and to intimidate the Russians but seems to have backfired with them (it just pushed the atomic arms race). Japan shrugged off the bombing. They quit the moment the Russians invaded and handed themselves to the Americans for protection.
My issue is support the bombing or not, the (non)-display is cowardly and unfortunate.
SHOW what happened in history, clearly and dispassionately, and let people make up their own minds. This plane MATTERS. Don’t hide it in plain sight.
Well worth perusal:
https://www.google.com/webh…
A site detailing the display controversy.
http://digital.lib.lehigh.e…
I’ve not seen it. No, rather than drive a few hours up to the Cape, I flew out to LA to see Endeavor. And like you I had a mystical experience, although I have to say that the current home for Endeavor leaves a lot to the imagination; a new building and display is in the works, I’m told.
They did have shuttle engines on display at ground level. Photos make gaining a sense of scale almost impossible.
Here’s a shameless selfie (same problem framing the picture that fcrary reports below):
Even with such a lousy display, that is one beautiful bird.
I thought that all NASA space hardware and all associated names and other stuff is the property of the Smithsonian and they loan it out to various entertainment and park companies.
NASA supplies stuff through the General Services Administration. The Smithsonian only gets what is directed to it, usually stuff of historic value.
I just checked on the status of the trademark for Space Shuttle Atlantis. It wasn’t the name, which it is not possible to trademark because it is regarded as generic, but only a specific design using it’s name in a specific way as part of the design. The details are located at this website which tracks trademarks.
https://trademarks.justia.c…
Also it appears that they are in the process of losing their attempt at establishing the trademark due to failure to use it. The website notes that the abandonment notice was sent out to them on Monday, 1/4/2016 after a failed three year effort to establish it.
The Yosemite trademarks at issue, including trademarked word “The Ahwahnee” were likely approved because it was seen by the trademark examiner as unique, fanciful and because the original firm, Yosemite Park and Curry Company, not only had the concession to run the hotel but also built in it in 1927 as part of their contract. So while the trademark word only dates to 1988 they could argue they acquired a legal right to it as part of their operating contract having taken over the assets from the Yosemite Park and Curry Company. But the government also has grounds on claiming these are considered generic names, as place names, and are not open to being trademarked words. It will be interesting to see what the courts decide on it. One key feature will also be how the operating contract handles intellectual property or if it even mentions it.
Good catch!
Thanks!
Their web site is kennedyspacecenter.com. I wonder how many people have typed that in to their browsers thinking they were going to the official KSC web site?
I’m sure a lot of people don’t pay attention to the “.com” at the end and get confused. I always thought that the government trying to “save money” by contracting out things like the Kennedy Space Center Visitor’s Center was a dumb thing to do long term.
KSC Visitors Center was always a contract thing. It was run by TWA when I was a kid in the ’60s/’70s.
Not sure NASA or GSA is able to design and operate that sort of concession; the Park Service has operated with concessions for a century.
Or that.
Spare me the outrage. Crony government invariably produces crony “capitalists.” Always has, always will.
You want to get rid of it? Start by reducing the role the federal government plays in national life.
When capturing national government — i.e., helping it to write rules and regs that benefit of “our friends in the private sector” — no longer produces tangible results, then and only then will this cease.
Libertarianism aside, the issue is the chutzpah of trying to trademark something belonging directly to We The People.
Business will always try for every advantage it can get. That’s its nature, and to expect anything different is magical thinking. To forestall or limit this, you need a government of angels — or a government with a lot less power.
Or, as some believe, a government that exercises authority by creating a level playing field for all, including the interests of citizens.
Examples abound: start with seat belts. Detroit screamed at the idea then first offered, but seat belts clearly save lives. The government properly required seat belts in all passenger vehicles. They offered performance specifications to manufacturers. Now we have many designs, all functional. Automobiles are stunningly safer than they were in the days of mechanical brakes. And you can’t see a car advertisement without a maker touting how safe their cars are! Fine. Don’t care who gets the credit.
Or clean water/air: regulation says stop dropping sh*t into the rivers or oceans because it’s bad for everyone. Don’t care how, just stop it.
Or wetlands. Smoking. Drug safety. Meat safety. Or…well, lots of examples.
Is there governmental overreach? Sure, from time to time. Is it a perfect system? No sir it is not. But those who reflexively gag when typing the word ‘government’ should realize that it’s the only mechanism we have to protect ourselves.
Very nicely said. Some cities in the U.S. would be unlivable if the government hadn’t taken action on air and water quality decades ago.
back in the ’60s the refrain went about Lake Erie – Too thin to cultivate, too thick to navigate.
Business often asks for government standards. Why?
Some want to do the right thing, but then cannot compete against businesses who don’t care.
By requiring pollution controls, safety equipment, decent worker treatment, etc. the level playing field Michael mentioned then all win.
If that is what it actually is. If its the Atlantis logo with the Orbiter outline being the “A”, then they should be able to trademark that.
I do agree for anything that is actually “trademarkable”, like a logo
Its just for a trademark of “Atlantis” with the Shuttle image being the first “A” isn’t it? That’s what’s used at the museum and on all of the merchandizing.
I’m not a big fan of the whole “pay us to see stuff you’ve already paid for” mindset. I suppose I can understand it to a degree for things like Atlantis given the amount of money it cost to display, but to have to pay to see the Moon rocks at Space Center Houston really irritates me. My parents (and all the other taxpayers) paid a ton of money to get those and the best they can see for free is fragments versus the large pieces they have in Houston.
List of moon rock locations:
http://curator.jsc.nasa.gov…
Some are free like the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum or the Smithsonian Museum Natural History.
Federal museums, both civilian and military are typically free, plus most museums have (inconvenient) free days.
Thanks for the list. I have to admit that I’ve seen only a few of these sites so perhaps I overstated my position, I was just particularly struck by the size of the Johnson samples. It gave me a much better understanding of what was brought back.
I have only seen a couple or 3 sites. I am interested in any really cools collections. Johnson? where else?
NASA could I suppose make them available at some center or other; you’d go there and you’d open a shoe box and there’s yer rocks, sir.
Or, they could engage a concessionaire to handle appropriate presentation and interpretive materials, thereby instructing millions and using the rocks to educate. The concession would also handle security as well as crowd control, parking, building the displays, etc.
For which they should be paid.
Or they could give them to the National Air and Space Museum which seems to do a pretty good job of crowd control and building the displays without me having to pay a thing. Parking, OK, sure, that’s another story. 😉
Or that, yes.
Or they could show them at the free-to-the-public visiting locations in the LRL and the building 2 visitor center, as they used to at JSC, before the expensive Disneyfied Space Center Houston was built.
They could yes. I’ve gotten myself backed into a corner defending Delaware and that’s not where I want to be. I’m only saying that they do bring value to the table, that’s all.
You and I might appreciate the rocks, but really they look like they fell off Pike’s Peak. Interpretive centers do a lot to move the ball forward by educating the folks who come.
I’m not a big fan of that mindset either, which is why I’ll never again buy a ticket to see an NFL game in the stadium the team blackmailed the taxpayers into buying for them.
“Delaware North already extracts huge sums of money from taxpayers to see billions of dollar’s worth of spacecraft that they’ve already paid for with their tax dollars.”
Sure. Isn’t being a theme park exactly what Kennedy Space Center was built to do?
Years ago the KSC visitor center itself was free although there was a charge for bus tours. Almost any weekend I could bring the kids over for lunch and spend some time talking about space. The displays were not as flashy but perhaps more realistic, however the Saturn V was outside and exposed to the weather, and the F1 engine had a test panel attached that made it look a little odd. The agency decided it wanted upgrades and contracted with DN allowing them to charge for admission, although NASA obviously paid for most of the upgrades. The visitor center is certainly more impressive now, particularly the Shuttle display, but it’s also more expensive and almost unreal.
I do think they need to avoid justifying the admission cost by saying that the visitor center isn’t operated with tax dollars. It is only there because American were willing to spend their tax dollars on Apollo and the Shuttle program. It shows what our tax dollars have accomplished, and it is not a fantasy.
I find it surprising there were able to get ownership of “Space Shuttle Atlantis” as a service mark given it has been in general use since the 1980’s. You have to wonder what the folks at the Patent and Trademark Office were thinking when they approved it. Have you thought of calling someone there for an Interview and ask how did it qualify as distinctive?
What is really needed is for Congress to pass legislation to protect the names of NASA spacecraft and vehicles as is the case with the use of the term Olympics to prevent such name grabs in the future.
http://www.inta.org/Tradema…
Under such legislation NASA would be made the owner and administrator of such names. Any licensing fees NASA earns for commercial use could be channeled directly to funding its STEM programs for kids.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wi…
Seems Delaware North is demanding $51M to use the Yosemite names they trademarked, now that they lost the concession.
Now look what they’re up to:
http://www.latimes.com/loca…
We get upset when when we pay for admission to to see things already paid for with our tax dollars. At the risk of defending Delaware North, stop and think for a moment though. What we pay for when we visit KSC is the restoration, maintenance, and housing of artifacts long ago paid for by the taxpayer. Is that really much different than other aviation museums who have aircraft on loan from the DoD but charge admission to see them? Their admission fees help pay for the upkeep of those aircraft.
Now to be fair, most aviation museums are non-profit and Delaware North is a for profit enterprise, but the principle remains the same. I do think that nearly 50 dollars a head plus the tour fees is a pretty steep price.
But if there is a silver lining to all this consider the following. People are paying 50 US dollars to see the Shuttle Atlantis and Apollo/Saturn; lots of people. A family of 4 will shell out 200 bucks plus eats/drinks/souvenirs. That could easily reach 300-500 dollars for one day at KSC.
The next time some survey indicates that the American public has no interest in space exploration and they especially don’t want to pay for it, call that survey’s bluff. Every day there is a packed visitor center full of ordinary people who will shell out serious money in order to feel closer to their space program.
Let the government operate something and often it becomes a black hole money wise. Not personally benefiting? Then we don’t care. That’s become our national credo. Or, let a private company run a facility and accept all the negatives that come with it. Neither option is good because we pay out the nose either way. And I highly doubt DN pays for upgrades, exhibits, or upkeep to the facilities in any way unless we’re talking about cleaning the bathrooms and even that is probably negotiated in their favor. I think the public would be quite outraged if they realized just how heavily subsidized a lot of these private companies are. Double dippers.
I’d like to see some documents that show how much DN is subsidized by Uncle Sam. All I know is from my personal experience. I help run a small aviation museum on the grounds of the old Martin factory in Baltimore. We have several static aircraft on display that are on loan from the DoD. The DoD specifies that these aircraft must be reasonably maintained and cleaned regularly. We receive zero federal dollars to maintain and clean them. We do get an annual grant from Lockheed Martin that helps with our annual operating budget but most of our operating expenses are met by the small admission we charge.
Of course our admission of $5 per person is not the 50 dollars that DN charges, but we’re not the KSC visitor center either.
Ideally NASA should have set up an agreement with the Smithsonian to run the visitor center at KSC. The Smithsonian would probably still charge an admission, but I’m sure it would have been a lot less than what DN has been charging.
Yes and for example I am just back home to Scotland after spending a week visiting the KSC visitor complex and it was worth every penny of the admission fee I got the Atlantis pass I have been coming out to visit KSC since 1990 and to be fair to Delaware North they have invested a lot of $ at KSC preserving space heritage seeing Atlantis was amazing !