In a move that could lead to new names for the Grand Canyon’s most iconic facilities, park operator Xanterra Parks & Resorts has filed trademark applications for lodges like the El Tovar, Phantom Ranch and Bright Angel.

The nearly 20 trademark applications filed in October and November would up the Greenwood Village-based national park concessionaire’s stake in the Grand Canyon, where is has operated for more than 100 years.

The applications were filed a few weeks after the company sued the National Park Service over the agency’s policy-shifting effort to make its Grand Canyon concessions contract more appealing to other bidders by paying down the concessionaire’s century-long investment in the national park.

Xanterra’s investment in the Grand Canyon — the largest in the national park system at $200 million over the last 100 years — is at the center of the lawsuit pitting the venerable concessionaire against the park service. The service in the last year scraped together $100 million, mostly from 88 of its parks, to pay down Xanterra’s stake in the Grand Canyon in an effort to encourage more competitive bids from other concessionaires, who must reimburse outgoing concessions operators.

Officials with Xanterra, which is owned by Denver investor Philip Anschutz, declined to comment.

The trademarks, if approved, would further stymie the park service’s ongoing struggle to squeeze more revenue from the companies that operate its lodging, dining and recreation facilities at national parks. The agency hopes that paying down longtime concessionaire investments — known as Leaseholder Surrender Interest — would entice more competitive bids from new operators who would pay a larger chunk of revenues to the agency.

For example, the park service’s out-for-bid contract to run the facilities at the Grand Canyon raises its take of operator revenues to 14 percent from 3.8 percent under Xanterra. But no company bid on that often-amended contract and the agency secured a one-year deal to keep Xanterra at the park while it works through both the lawsuit with Xanterra and its pursuit of more competitive bids.

Finding new concession operators is challenging for the park service, which in late December announced it was extending 111 contracts set to expire at year’s end at 11 of its park properties “to avoid interruption of visitors services.”

Million-dollar trademarks certainly roil the already churning concession contract waters for the agency.

“This really raises the question: Are these iconic properties in some of our most popular national parks known because they are managed by the concessionaire or are they known because they are part of these iconic landscapes?” said David Nimkin, a regional director for the National Parks Conservation Association. “Either way, it makes it harder for a competitor to bid on the contract.”

Hindering competition may be the point of trademarks, although no concessionaire would admit that. There are only three major players in the national concessions market: Xanterra, Delaware North and Aramark. Private operators in 110 parks grossed $1.14 billion in revenue in 2012, earning the park service $70.5 million in franchise fees.

Trademarks of park attractions are not new. The patent office lists at least 26 “Old Faithful” trademarks, from guns and glue to pencils and tires.

And trademarks are not uncommon for park concessionaires. Delaware North, which recently won a portion of Xanterra’s Grand Canyon operations, last year informed the park service its trademarks at Yosemite National Park, where it has operated since 1993, are worth $51 million. That estimate, which the park service has not acknowledged, is a point of contention in the park service’s search for bids to operate facilities at Yosemite. That 15-year contract generates around $130 million in revenues a year.

The park service estimates a new concessionaire would have to pay Delaware North about $32 million to reimburse the company’s 21-year investment in the nation’s third most trafficked park. Delaware North says the number should be closer to $100 million, with $51 million of that “intellectual property.”

In the ninth amendment to the prospectus for new concessionaires at Yosemite, the park service said it “is unable at this time to determine the credibility of approximately $65 million” of Delaware North’s claims.

If Delaware North does not win the Yosemite contract, the park service said it would allow a new concessionaire to change the names of the park’s hotels and lodges to avoid paying for the trademarks.

“The concessioner may choose to operate one or more of the concession facilities using a name other than the current place name, (e.g. The Ahwahnee Hotel, Curry Village)” reads the ninth amendment to the contract, filed in November last year.

Delaware North spokeswoman Lisa Cesaro said the company acquired all of Yosemite’s trademarks and other intangible assets when it took over the park’s concessions from the previous operator Yosemite Park & Curry Co. in 1993. (That company in 1989 won trademarks for several Yosemite lodges and restaurants, like the famed Ahwahnee Hotel.)

The $51 million estimate came from a third party and involves intangible assets like logos, service marks, mailing lists, websites and guest databases as well as trademarked names, Cesaro said.

“Our contract with the National Park Service does not permit us to take the names with us, but requires a successor to buy the trademarks, just as we bought the then-existing trademarks from the company before us,” she said.

Jason Blevins: 303-954-1374, jblevins@denverpost.com or twitter.com/jasonblevins