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Until I read an article in a recent investment newsletter, this UP trademark licencing business didn't make any sense to me. After all, why would a corporation which will be investing billions, yes BILLIONS, of dollars annually for the next several years, just for new locomotives and track improvements, care about models made by Athearn and Lionel? Is it because they fear inroads might be made in their sales of golf tees, keychains, beer mugs, wooden woo-woo whistles and other brick-a brack bearing the UP logo? (Look at their website--I'm not making up these officially-sponsored products.) I don't think so. Is it a matter of business necessity that they paint the old "Overland" logo on a token number of boxcars, or repaint a CNW logo on a covered hopper that's about to be outlawed for interchange service due to age? Again, I don't think so. What the investment newsletter clued me into is the notion that trademarks and trade names, as "intelectual property" or "intangible assets" of a corporation are susceptible to, shall we say, expansive valuation on the balance sheet. In other words, the stated "value" of things like the old MoPac "buzzsaw" logo can be just about whatever the owner claims it to be. And if the owner of such property is as honest as the boys from Enron -- well, you get the drift.
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