LeEco's trademarks are auctioned again, live-streaming sales can hardly save it
[4] Compiled from: Red Star News
Case review
The Beijing First Intermediate People's Court recently announced that 908 trademarks owned by LeTV Holdings (Beijing) Co., Ltd. will be auctioned on the JD.com online judicial auction platform from October 10 to October 11, with a starting bid of 837,900 yuan.
This auction includes multiple well-known trademarks from LeEco's "Le" series and "LE" series, such as "Le Life," "Le Dimension," and "LeMobile." Most of the trademarks are appraised at around 700 yuan, with the highest one valued at 4,063.2 yuan.
Court announcements show that the auction is related to a 2017 intellectual property contract dispute involving LeTV Holdings. The plaintiff was Beijing Luhao Intellectual Property Agency Co., Ltd., and LeTV Holdings was ordered at the time to pay the plaintiff 2.209 million yuan in official fees and agency fees.
Previously, LeEco trademarks were also publicly auctioned. In June 2020, the Beijing Third Intermediate People’s Court publicly auctioned 1,354 trademarks owned by LeTV Information Technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd. Classic LeEco trademarks such as “LE,” “LE LeTV,” “LeTV TV,” and “LeTV Super TV” were all included.
In the end, these trademarks, with a starting bid of only 130,000 yuan, were sold for 131 million yuan. The bidder was Tianjin Jiarui Huixin Enterprise Management Co., Ltd., which was also the second largest shareholder of LeTV at that time.
By April 2021, another 580 trademarks under the LeEco system were put up for auction, with a starting bid set at 14 million yuan and a final transaction price of 16.03 million yuan. It is worth noting that the winning bidder for this batch of trademarks was still Tianjin Jiarui Huixin Enterprise Management Co., Ltd.
[1] The author's perspective
LeEco was once one of the industry giants, but its profits declined year after year, and the founder’s departure caused the company’s reputation to plummet. Recently, LeEco has begun to enter the livestreaming e-commerce industry and has boldly declared that it is “striving to become the next New Oriental.” Unfortunately, in stark contrast to such grand words, LeEco’s livestreaming data has remained unremarkable. As of mid-September, LeEco’s report card showed 14 livestreaming sessions in 30 days and sales of only 20,000 yuan, far removed from East Buy’s average daily sales in the 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.
