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Sell a trademark

Why sell a trademark?

Over the years, your company might register numerous trademarks for future entities, new products or services. Sometimes these new projects are abandoned. In other cases, when several trademarks have been considered for a project, some registered trademarks are not used. Following restructuring or mergers, some registered trademarks may no longer be needed because they do not fit your new strategy or image. They become redundant.

This sometimes results in companies owning tens or hundreds of dormant trademarks. They often do not have a clear strategy for managing their portfolio of trademarks An easy option is just to continue to renew the trademarks every 10 years, when the registration expires. However, this creates a significant workload as well as costs for the company’s legal department. It also contributes to the cluttering of trademarks registers.

Registered trademarks are immaterial assets. Companies should therefore consider monetising dormant or redundant trademarks before they expire. They can have a real value for other companies struggling to find and register a trademark. This is particularly true if they need to find a trademark quickly and to reduce the risks involved in the registration of a trademark.

TradeYourMark® can assist you in the valuation of your portfolio of trademarks. By doing this, you make it possible for new companies to upcycle the registered trademarks.

Monetisation of your porfolio of trademarks

Rationalisation

Valuation

Negotiation

Why use our services?

Companies

Managing trademark registrations and renewals can be complex and costly, especially if they are registered in multiple countries. By selling trademarks you no longer need, you monetise non-productive immaterial assets which can instead be invested in value creation. You can also reduce the burden and cost of managing your trademark portfolio.
Agencies

Naming or marketing agencies may also have portfolios of dormant trademarks. These can be brands created during a project for a client but which were not ultimately selected. In some cases, these brands have been registered, for example so that they are protected before being tested with a focus group. Naming and marketing agencies also sometimes register trademarks that appear to have potential in order to have a stock of readily available trademarks they can propose to clients. An active strategy to sell these trademarks allows agencies to make the most of the creative work already done.

How does TradeYourMark® support you?

TradeYourMark® assists you in the valuation of your trademark portfolio. TradeYourMark® brings its strategic, legal, financial and commercial expertise throughout the whole project.

Analysis of your portfolio

We first analyse your trademark portfolio. We then propose a segmentation into homogeneous categories, which could for example be based on names, products and services or territories covered. We make a recommendation on the blocks of trademarks that could be offered for sale. We charge a fixed fee for this step.

Commercial strategy

On this basis, we recommend a commercial strategy. We discuss with you to understand your objectives and your requirements. We propose a methodology to value your trademarks, based on ISO standards and our extensive valuation experience in M&A projects. We charge a fixed fee for this step.

Negotiation

We find buyers for your trademarks using a proactive and targeted marketing approach and our network of partners. We negotiate with them according to your instructions, in particular regarding the minimum sale price. The remuneration of TradeYourMark® is a percentage of the sale price.

Legal support

We assist our clients in the contractual aspects related to the sale of the trademarks. We draft a sale and purchase offer formalising the agreement reached by the parties. The signature by the seller and the buyer of the sale and purchase offer concludes the negotiation phase. If requested by the client, we can then draft a standard sale and purchase agreement reflecting the terms of the signes sale and purchase offer. We charge a fixed fee for this step. We assist our clients in discussions with the buyer until the sale and purchase agreeement is signed by both parties.

Recent projects

Sanofi, a world leader in the pharmaceutical industry, has mandated us to sell a portfolio of 300 trademarks.

Client challenges

Sanofi has a portfolio of close to 1,500 registered trademarks in France and over 70,000 in 200 countries worldwide. Sanofi is seeking to monetise these immaterial assets.

Our approach

Audit and segmentation of the portfolio

• Sanofi's legal department first carried out an audit of the trademark portfolio. The company selected around 300 dormant trademarks to sell, registered mainly in Europe, Turkey and Brazil.

• We then analysed this portfolio and proposed to group some of these trademarks in consistent batches.
Valuation of trademarks

• We discussed a valuation methodology with Sanofi, which was then used as a framework for our discussions with potential buyers.
Commercial approach : we defined 3 axes

• Our first approach was to work in partnership with intellectual property specialists and marketing agencies active in the pharmaceutical sector. This proved to be a very positive approach, with our offer relayed by these professionals to their clients.

• We also contacted directly companies looking for trademarks in the pharmaceutical sector and more specifically trademarks for diet products and dietary supplements.

• Finally, we work with Sanofi on a very innovative approach to give more visibility to their trademark portfolio.