Trademark Mortality and Intangible Overvaluation: Weibull Calibration Across All 45 Nice Classes Using 6.5 Million USPTO Records

Trademark valuation under the Relief from Royalty method implicitly assumes perpetual brand survival - an assumption refuted by 154 years of USPTO data. This paper presents the first empirical survival analysis of U.S. registered trademarks disaggregated across all 45 Nice International Classification classes, calibrated on 6,557,127 unique trademark processes (1870–2024). Weibull shape parameters (k, λ) are estimated via Maximum Likelihood Estimation for each class. Results show k > 1 in 34 of 45 classes (75.6%), indicating monotonically increasing hazard rates - trademarks face rising extinction risk as they age, not declining. Characteristic lifetime ranges from 12.1 to 49.9 years; the 10-year survival probability ranges from 52.3% (Telecommunications, Nice 38) to 79.0% (Paints & Coatings, Nice 2). The Gordon Growth Model's implicit perpetuity assumption generates per-class overvaluation biases between 16.4% and 45.6%, with a sample mean of 27.1%. These actuarially grounded discount factors apply directly to Purchase Price Allocation (IFRS 3 / ASC 805), brand impairment testing (IAS 36 / ASC 350), transfer pricing (IRC 482 / OECD TPG), and litigation appraisals before U.S. courts and the TTAB.