IP Management
Shortly after this move Ah Kun passed away, but the Ya Kun Coffee Stall lived on through his children. Recognizing the popularity of the Ya Kun brand name and the need to modernize, Adrin Loi, Ah Kun’s youngest son, capitalized on Ya Kun’s intangible assets to expand Ya Kun beyond the one stall “mom-and-pop” operation it had been for so long. The Ya Kun coffee stall became Ya Kun (S) Pte. Ltd. (Ya Kun) and in 2001, Mr. Loi launched Ya Kun International Pte. Ltd. (Ya Kun International) to create and manage the Ya Kun franchise system.
Before Mr. Loi took over Ya Kun in 1999, the company’s business strategy was conservative and lacked modern managerial business expertise. It worked on a simple business model and lacked depth and breadth of product offerings, which made it easy for competitors to duplicate and thus left little impetus for change and growth. Despite Ya Kun’s popularity, Mr. Loi was faced with the difficult challenge of coming up with a way to best expand the business beyond a single location.
Mr. Loi spent significant time researching his options. He thought about raising the necessary financial resources himself to grow the business, but this proved too daunting of a task with his limited available capital. He then researched ways in which intellectual property (IP) could help a business grow and realized that he was sitting on a substantial IP portfolio. His father had built up a lot of goodwill, customer loyalty and strong brand recognition of the Ya Kun name, and this could all be used for effective expansion. After researching the benefits IP could bring, Mr. Loi decided that it would be the cornerstone of the company’s growth strategy and would be realized through franchising and creating Ya Kun Cafés throughout Singapore. In 2000, he brought in a franchising consulting team to help him develop a franchise strategy.
The success of Ya Kun’s franchise system is entirely dependent on maintaining a strong IP management strategy. Ya Kun’s strategy therefore is to obtain IP rights (IPR) in its domestic and target international markets for trademarks, copyrights and any other IP created through the course of business. When Ya Kun’s first attempted to obtain IPRs in its initial international markets, it found that some foreign parties had attempted to capitalize on the company’s success by applying for trademark protection for the Ya Kun name. Though their efforts proved unsuccessful, this prompted Ya Kun to obtain IPRs before any international franchising agreements are entered into to ensure that the company will not face any legal issues related to its IP when entering a new market.