Valuing and Monetizing a Trademark Portfolio: A Practitioner's Guide to Royalty Benchmarks, Licensing Revenue, and Brand Collateral
By Casey Scott McKay ·
This guide is the operational half of the Marksy article on trademark valuation, and it assumes you know the three approaches and why relief from royalty does most of the work. It runs a portfolio through fourteen stages, from the cleanup that should precede any valuation to the disposal decision for brands that no longer earn their keep. Its center is the royalty rate - how to set one that survives an auditor, a tax authority, and a cross-examination - together with the licensing program design that turns a rate into revenue: minimum guarantees, audit rights, quality control that protects both the mark and the income stream, and the reporting that makes the revenue verifiable. It supplies a portfolio cleanup protocol built around the findings that discount a valuation, an engagement specification for commissioning a valuation, the legal inputs a valuer needs and rarely receives, transfer pricing documentation requirements, and the structures used to borrow against or securitize a brand. It closes with what to do about a brand that is worth more sold than kept.
IP and Technology > IP and IT in Corporate Transactions | Guide | Published 11 February 2026 - Updated 31 March 2026 | Casey Scott McKay - marksy.us
Summary. This guide is the operational half of the Marksy article on trademark valuation, and it assumes you know the three approaches and why relief from royalty does most of the work. It runs a portfolio through fourteen stages, from the cleanup that should precede any valuation to the disposal decision for brands that no longer earn their keep. Its center is the royalty rate — how to set one that survives an auditor, a tax authority, and a cross-examination — together with the licensing program design that turns a rate into revenue: minimum guarantees, audit rights, quality control that protects both the mark and the income stream, and the reporting that makes the revenue verifiable. It supplies a portfolio cleanup protocol built around the findings that discount a valuation, an engagement specification for commissioning a valuation, the legal inputs a valuer needs and rarely receives, transfer pricing documentation requirements, and the structures used to borrow against or securitize a brand. It closes with what to do about a brand that is worth more sold than kept.
Keywords: portfolio valuation engagement · royalty rate setting · licensing program design · minimum guarantees · royalty audit rights · brand extension licensing · transfer pricing documentation · purchase price allocation inputs · impairment testing support · ip backed lending · brand securitization structure · portfolio cleanup before sale · licensing revenue reporting · quality control and value · valuation sensitivities · tax structuring assignment · deal schedules · brand disposal · monetization decision
This is premium Marksy content — the full document is available to subscribers.