"Pan Am" TV series on ABC - Pan Am Railways Trademark Rights

This might be slightly off topic, but ABC is in development of a new pilot revolving around 1960's Pan Am, with their focus on the flight attendants in what were then the most sophisticated public planes in the sky. While PAS has retired the airline, they own the rights, so I have to imagine that ABC has struck a licensing deal with the PAS to use the name. Wonder how much they got for it?

I found this link in Variety; sounds like PAS played hardball. Wonder if that's where the money for the SW-1's came from.

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118024364?refCatId=14

The intellectual property for Pan Am (full name: Pan American World Airways) is owned by the privately-held Pan Am Systems, which is run by Mellon banking heir Timothy Mellon, as well as David Fink and son David A. Fink, among others. The original Pan Am filed for bankruptcy and shut down in 1991; however, the name has been licensed to other small airlines since then. No plane has flown under the Pan Am name since 2008, however. More recently, the Pan Am name and logo were used by designer Marc Jacobs for a line of hugely successful handbags and accessories. Sony and Ganis had to wait until Jacobs' license to use the Pan Am name and logo expired before moving forward. The rights have now been fully licensed for the show, Van Amburg said.

I don't see how they "played hardball" here, they simply granted licensing rights to the logo as they did to the hand bag maker. It is standard practice among corporations to regard trademarks and logos as intellectual property and to collect fees or charges for their use. Other railroads have been doing this for some time now (CSX and UP among others).

As you say, this is common practice, and can be quite lucrative for the companies that own the logos and trademarks.

Those Westinghouse light bulbs that are on the shelf at Home Depot? Westinghouse is now CBS, and CBS sure doesn't make light bulbs.

GE hasn't manufactured television sets in twenty years. They're made by Thomson Electronics (the former European GE), with the GE label on them under license.

Hardball? PAR? You must be joking right? Sure they have rights to the name and so forth, but let's face it, we are dealing the equivalent of a kid on the playground, not some corporation that has a reputation to be unrelenting.

And if they have to depend on licensing fees to purchase motive power, and an SW-1 at that, it is a pretty sad state of affairs.

I was kidding about the SW-1 of course.

I read several quotes about how difficult it was to convince the Pan Am people to license the logo for the show

"Sony and Ganis had to wait until Jacobs' license to use the Pan Am name and logo expired before moving forward. The rights have now been fully licensed for the show, Van Amburg said.

"Nancy worked long and hard to convince them that TV was the next flight for Pan Am to take," he said."

That article seems to infer that the time expired for "Pan Am" to be used by the RR. Does that mean that an extra fee is contracted for it's use in multiple domains or that the RR can no longer legally use it ?

Which article are you referring to?

Pan Am Systems owns the rights to the "Pan Am" name, logo and other associated things. They can use the name however they see fit. The handbag manufacturer must have had "exclusive" rights which allowed them to make bags and allowed none other than Pan Am the owner of the brand to produce or use the "Pan Am" name. The Pan Am show needed to wait for that contract to expire. Now the show has been licensed to use the name and logo, though it sounds like they did not secure exclusive rights... Pan Am Systems still owns the name and logo and can use it as they want.

I just went to the former PanAm shopping site at panambrands.com, and find that it redirects to a brand-new site at panam.com. My hunch is that the former site (which was still up during the Amtrak Heritage visit to Freeport in August) was connected to the Jacobs line of bags. The new site has the current lineup of bags, totes, and tchotchkes, as well as a blog with one entry heralding the new show; presumably the current merchandise producers have contracts that specifically reserve TV rights to Sony et al.

There's a (perhaps impish) part of me that wishes the RR would start referring itself as "Pan American World Railways," though.

My sympathies to those of you who actually lost money, etc. in the PanAm/B&M Airways debacle.

ETA: I just noticed that MEC407 just linked to the new PanAm.com site in the "PanAm Brands" thread. Sorry for the duplication.

As for the show itself, it's on my DVR and hopefully I'll get to it this week.

I "stayed up" to watch the premiere last evening; not sure if I will do so for any more episodes.

I do not have any DVR system (wouldn't know how to work it if i did and at my age I'm not about to learn) and Comcast On-Demand does not offer any ABC network material. Unless episodes are available through the ABC website, I have likely seen my last.

However, I find the discussion here regarding the rights to the "Pan Am" trade and service marks to be quite interesting; I'm sure that Guilford Railroads has enhanced their image by adopting the name Pan Am, even if "the real Pan Am" is more likely portrayed in this not so flattering book, which suggest that at best Pan Am was some kind of personal fiefdom and at its worst some kind of passenger "suicide mission':

http://www.amazon.com/Skygods-Fall-Pan- ... 0688046150

My only experience with Pan Am was during 1976 with a KDIA-EGLL round trip; be it assured that by then, any vestiges depicted in the noted TV production were gone...gone.

If the show gets more people to visit the Pan Am Brands web site and order Pan Am gear, I'd say that's definitely a good thing for Pan Am Systems' bottom line!

MEC407 wrote:If the show gets more people to visit the Pan Am Brands web site and order Pan Am gear, I'd say that's definitely a good thing for Pan Am Systems' bottom line!

Pan Am brands is currently #7 on Google search for "pan am".

Oddly the TV Show's official site on ABC doesn't have a link to Pan Am Brands even thought PAB links to ABC.

Current Pan Am TV show "like" count on Facebook: 200,813!

Volks, I'm confused - and so far as I'm concerned I've "done my homework" with a careful review of the discussion here.

Who owns Pan Am Systems; the Guilford Railroads (B&M, MEC, et al) themselves, or the Mellons and Finks INDEPENDENT of the railroad holding company? If the latter, then Railroads is simply an on-going customer of Systems, enabling the Mellons and Finks to have a stream of income unto themselves and lays to rest any issues regarding how many parties may concurrently hold licenses to the name and logo.

Finally, regarding the issue tangentially noted by Mr. Pro Rail, from his comment, it appears that the 'reincarnated' Pan Am (airline) left some passengers stranded when they went 'belly'. I have met a person along the way who got stranded when ATA Airlines "stalled'. The "adios drumhead' flight landed without incident complete with the "Ladies and Gentlemen we have just landed (can't recall where).....' announcement. The the Captain announced the airline had folded while they were in flight.....and of course mention for the return "you are on your own'. I've also known a Midway Airlines Flight Attendant who was with them when they folded during 1991; however she was simply on break (hubby made "big $$$"; "what me worry??").

Gilbert B Norman wrote:Who owns Pan Am Systems; the Guilford Railroads (B&M, MEC, et al) themselves, or the Mellons and Finks INDEPENDENT of the railroad holding company? If the latter, then Railroads is simply an on-going customer of Systems, enabling the Mellons and Finks to have a stream of income unto themselves and lays to rest any issues regarding how many parties may concurrently hold licenses to the name and logo.

Pan Am Systems is owned by Tim Mellon, the Finks. Pan Am Systems is the umbrella company that has several divisions. The railway division is Pan Am Railways (MEC/BM/ST/PTM) they also own/owned Perma-Treat though I'm not sure what division that falls under. The Mellons and Finks are primary stockholders of PAS (The umbrella company not Pan Am Southern.) and Finks are corporate officers. As such, they set dividend rates and make oodles of money. The contracts signed with Sony and the bag maker all use the Pan Am name, liscensed by Pan Am Systems, so the money "should" be company money, even if the dividend rate for the "Brands" division is 100% and it makes only a short stop in the company coffers.

That all said, supposedly (I haven't seen it) the credits say the show is in no way related to the railroad. If thats the case it makes me wonder if Mellon himself liscensed the Pan Am name.

Who purchased the Pan Am name, logo and rights back in '99 was it Mellon himself of his company Guilford Trans. Industries?