LeEco's trademarks are auctioned again, live-streaming sales can hardly save it
[4] Compiled from: Red Star News
Case review
[2] Recently, the Beijing First Intermediate People's Court issued an announcement that 908 trademarks under LeEco Holdings (Beijing) Co., Ltd. will be auctioned on JD.com's judicial auction platform from October 10 to October 11, with a starting price of 837,900 yuan.
[3] This auction includes multiple well-known trademarks from LeEco's "Le" series and "LE" series, such as "Le Life," "Le Dimension," and "LeMobile." Most trademarks are valued at around 700 yuan, with the highest-valued trademark appraised at 4,063.2 yuan.
[4] The court announcement indicates that this auction is related to a 2017 intellectual property contract dispute involving LeEco Holdings, where the plaintiff was Beijing Luhao Intellectual Property Agency Co., Ltd., and LeEco Holdings was ordered to pay the plaintiff official fees and agency fees totaling 2.209 million yuan.
[5] Previously, LeEco-related trademarks were also publicly auctioned. In June 2020, the Beijing Third Intermediate People's Court auctioned 1,354 trademarks under LeEco Information Technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd., including classic LeEco trademarks such as "LE," "LE LeEco," "LeEco TV," and "LeEco Super TV."
[1] In the end, this batch of trademarks, with a starting price of only 130,000 yuan, was sold for 131 million yuan. The buyer was Tianjin Jiarui Huixin Enterprise Management Co., Ltd., which was also the second-largest shareholder of LeEco at the time.
[2] By April 2021, another 580 trademarks from the LeEco group were auctioned, with a starting price set at 14 million yuan, ultimately selling for 16.03 million yuan. Notably, the buyer of this batch was still Tianjin Jiarui Huixin Enterprise Management Co., Ltd.
[1] The author's perspective
[3] LeEco, once one of the industry giants, saw its profits decline year by year, and the departure of its founder caused a sharp drop in the company's reputation. Recently, LeEco has ventured into live-streaming e-commerce, boldly claiming it is "striving to become the next New Oriental." Unfortunately, contrary to its ambitious words, LeEco's live-streaming data has remained mediocre. As of mid-September, LeEco's performance was 14 live-streaming sessions over 30 days, with sales revenue of only 20,000 yuan—far from Oriental Selection's daily sales of tens of millions of yuan.
[4] This time, the auction of the second batch of LeEco trademarks, while confirming LeEco's decline, also proves that LeEco's trademarks still hold some value. For well-known companies like LeEco, trademark value is one of their core assets, and its economic evaluation is more often based on the influence and reputation formed during the trademark's dissemination. The value of a trademark does not disappear immediately with a company's delisting or dissolution. Therefore, even if LeEco is delisted, its trademarks still retain value.
