Nemanja Pantelic/Flickr
Ken Cooley is from a Yosemite family. The California state assemblyman raised his boys on hikes in the valley; he took a pack mule trip through the park with friends and colleagues this summer; his grandparents even worked together at the Ahwahnee Hotel way back when.
So the news last month that Delaware North, a privately held company that ran concessions inside the park until last year, had trademarked the names of the park’s most iconic places—Curry Village, Badger Pass, the Ahwahnee, and even “Yosemite National Park” itself—left Cooley flabbergasted. “It is surreal, outrageous,” he says. The National Park Service, as a result of the trademark dispute, will be changing the names of sites as early as March 1.
As an elected state official, Cooley can’t do anything about the Yosemite name changes. A legal challenge to the trademarks from NPS is currently wending its way through the courts and, besides, NPS is a federal agency. But the assemblyman, a Democrat who represents an area outside Sacramento, took it upon himself to try to prevent something like this from ever happening again in California.
Cooley, who is also an attorney, on Thursday introduced legislation to block any concessionaire from trademarking the name of a California State Park. Doing so “derogates the interests of California and the shared history of Californians,” Cooley wrote in the bill. The law would void any contract with a company that trademarks a state park name, and, critically, prevents the government from doing future business with the company.
“Our state parks are not like football or baseball stadiums, trading sponsorship deals to the highest bidder,” adds co-author Adam Gray, whose district includes Yosemite, in a February 18 statement sent to Outside.
If the bill is passed and other states follow California’s lead, Cooley says, concessionaires would be dissuaded from trademarking what he calls America’s “cultural heirlooms.” “You’d realize, as a concessionaire, that if I am out there trying to assert trademarks on treasured cultural names, I’m jeopardizing my ability to continue in the concessions business,” Cooley says. Read More