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Anytime there are public transactions of pieces of intellectual property, our professional interest is roused because we are constantly paying attention to benchmark information that can better inform our market value appraisals.  That is one reason we paid attention to the auction of “retired” trademarks earlier this month.

For the event, Brands USA Holdings hired Racebrook Marketing Concepts to auction off what was termed by the lay press as “retired brands,” in effect, old corporate names.  Brands USA Holdings did not own the brands, but rather had filed intent-to-use forms for them with the USPTO, and what was for sale was the ownership of those applications.   Obviously, questions of “naked licenses” and “where’s the goodwill?” arise in these cases.

What was actually available for sale was a total of 170 product and corporate names that are no longer being used.  Randy Cochran lists them all on BVR’s Intellectual Property Blog and the ones that stand out to us are:

• Shearson, in the financial services sector
• Cheez Kisses, in the foods industry
• Meister Brau, in beverages
• Computer City, in retail
• Annie Hall, for apparel
• Handi Wrap in household goods.

While there are deeply hidden references and faint recollections surrounding some of these marks in consumers’ minds, it is not clear at all that a new product launch, or a restructuring of an existing business would derive a net benefit from building these brands as opposed to starting from scratch. Definitely, a case-by-case analysis that would have to be performed and, perhaps, it should not be surprising that all indications are that the auction did not raise significant amounts of money for these applications.

According to the reports in the blogosphere and BVR, no more than $150,000 changed hands, with several marks not being sold, and some fetching as little as $1,000.  In addition, the second stage of the game is to ascertain that there are domain names available for the “retirees” as any contemporary brand building would require.  As far as we have been able to check, most are “parked” domains that pre-date the applications being sold, and the cost of paying off the current owners, or developing a workaround, is an added cost to the strategy of reviving old brands.

For all the intrigue and interest it may have drawn, the revival strategy does not appear to be economically worthwhile.  We await counter-examples with interest…