Value of Trademark

Surely unless you are a big player, the only people who can value your trademark are the people willing to lend the money, as its only worth what they think it is.

If you dont know how much your trademark is worth, how do you know its the most valuable aspect of your company?

Seems a very intangible thing, depending on whether anyone else wants it. You could perhaps offer it on EBay to see if anyone was interested. But would a bank lend money on something so subject to whim?

My understanding is that considerable investment in customer service, advertising, sponsorship etc is required to build a valuable trademark, but it can be destroyed in a moment of madness. Remember what Gerald did to Ratners with one speech?

So lending on it has to be a risky business.

Neb

The value depends to a large extent on the mentioned factors. If, for example, you spent 60k on sponsoring a major event, you could arguably say that this added 60k to the value in year 1, 40k in year 2 and 20k in year

1. Such figure would have to be agreed with your auditor.

I would be a little worried if the company consisted of not much more than the trademark. To be valuable, the trademark must generate a customer base which in turn must generate income (with a tangible value). Unless the trademark does this, it's value is limited.

Is it registered?

Stephen

Thats what the OP said in her first message.

Suppose I could prove there are over 200,000 products out there that have the registered trademark on. Every product ever sold has carried this trademark so in theory at least 200,000 people know this brand. That is surely better than say spending 60k on sponsoring a corporate event. The 200,000 sales proves the trademark is generating income.

My main question was who and how would I get the registered trade mark audited. Any names and numbers of companies ?

Auditing is mainly about checking the validity of your calculations. You could perhaps look at the premium over similar products. For example, unbranded paracetamol tablets cost about 1p each. There are many identical tablets sold under a brand name for many times the price. These premium could then be added up for a whole year and multiplied by a factor of four (if you want to pay me a whopping consultancy fee, I will justify the figure of four) to get the value of the trademark.

I am sure there are many firms who would claim to be experts in auditing trademarks in order to "earn" a fee, but at the end of the day the money will be wasted unless your bank recognises the firm as authoritative. Ask your bank for a recommendation.

The problem is that the negative value to you if you lost it is nowhere near the same as the positive value to the bank if they acquired it.

You may think that pledging something that generates sales of, for example, 50 grand is an incentive for you to pay the loan and not default on it. The bank will not see it this way and will ask "how much is this item worth on the open market?" This is very likey to be a fraction of the sales that it generates.

tim