An article on August 22, 2019 in the San Francisco Chronicle, What did Yosemite get for the $12 Million paid to its former concessionaire, discusses the terms of the settlement agreement between the U.S. National Park Service and Delaware North, which had asserted intellectual property claims on iconic Yosemite place names like the Ahwahnee Hotel and Curry Village. OWE’s Mel Owen was quoted in the article on the subject of lessons learned:
“What it accomplishes … is the return of what the National Park Service should have owned all along,” said Mel Owen, an attorney at San Francisco firm Owen Wickersham and Erickson who specializes in trademark law. “And the experience, while expensive, should result in the (park) service avoiding such trademark ownership issues with future concessionaires.”