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The Modernization Law 2022-267 of February 28, 2022 has significantly modified the regulations on auctions in France. Previously, only tangible assets could be sold at voluntary auctions. Court-appointed liquidators could organise judicial auction sales of intangible assets but outside this framework, it was not possible for companies to sell their intangible assets at auction. The law of 28 February 2022 now allows intangible assets to be sold at voluntary auctions. This includes trademarks, patents, licenses, domain names and NFTs.
To seize this opportunity, TradeYourMark® has created a dedicated entity, BidYourMark®, which builds on TradeYourMark®‘s unique expertise in trademark sales.
BidYourMark® supports its clients at all stages of their project to auction trademarks. Our service range includes:
BidYourMark® has set up a partnership with an auction house.
We organise the auctions of trademarks in partnership with an auction house specialised in the corporate market, ADER EP. We combine the strenghts and expertise of the two companies :
Bidding system to get the best price
A transparent and fast sales process
Expertise
and service at each step
As a result of strategic changes, restructurings or mergers, companies may be end up owning many dormant or redundant trademarks. Some companies might have portfolios of dozens or hundreds of dormant trademarks which they just continue to renew them every 10 years without any specific strategic goal. Companies might also decide to stop using a trademark as part of their business strategy.
Trademarks, including dormant trademarks, are intangible assets that have a value. It is therefore interesting for companies to sell them whilst to realise their value and be able to reinvest it in more strategic activities.
Two options are available to sell the trademarks: negotiation by mutual agreement with potential buyers or the organisation of an auction sale.
Auction sales have many advantages:
It makes sense to organise auction sales specific to one industry sector to have an efficient marketing and commercial strategy. An auction sale can be organised just for one seller but can also offer trademarks from several sellers to have a sufficient number of auction lots. The communication plan before the auction sale must specifically target the potential buyers in the industry sector, using a combination of targeted contacts, traditional media and online media.
Auction sales are strictly regulated in France. Before the sale, the auction house has to publish a detailed description of the lots offered for sale. In the specific case of trademarks, the auction house will at minimum need to provide the names of the trademarks and a link to the data in the official trademark registers. This has two key implications. First of all, it means that it is not possible to do anonlymous sales, as could happen for sales of tangible assets. Secondly, this means that the trademarks must be carefully selected to avoid risks of nullity or revocation actions against them. BidYourMark® brings its expertise to select the trademarks to be auctioned.
An essential aspect is to define the initial price at which the bidding starts. The price must of course be defined using objective valuation methods. For trademarks which are still used, this includes for example financial, legal and reputation elements, in line with the ISO standards. The price must also be set at a realsistic level to attract bids. This is particularly important in the emerging market of immaterial assets auction sales.
Why BidYourMark® ?
