Most tellings of the Paris Hilton fragrance story stop at the licence: Parlux made the product, held the inventory, ran the distribution. She lent the name and took a percentage.

That is what a licence is, and it is where the tellings go wrong.

A licence has to be a licence of something. She registered “That’s Hot” as a trademark in 2007. When Hallmark put the phrase on a greeting card, she sued. Her registrations run well past a catchphrase: across fragrance, clothing, jewellery, cosmetics.

She did not spend twenty years owning nothing and then suddenly build a company. She owned the asset from early on, rented it out, and took twenty years to build the business around it. The mark was the thing.

If the deal stopped tomorrow, what would you still hold? If the answer is nothing, the mark was never yours.