A new business model or just a mistaken trademark application?

A Chinese company has filed a trademark application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for:

Which the applicant says is equivalent to Sai Bo Na, which has no meaning. But its the classes of service for the registration that has me scratching my head:

G & S: Copyright management; Domain name registration services; Escort services; Intellectual property consultation; Intellectual property watch services; Legal research; Licensing of computer software; Licensing of intellectual property; Litigation services; Marriage counseling. FIRST USE: 20080319. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 20080319

So you get an escort along with your domain name registration? Sensing the problems this might cause, the company also provides marriage counseling services.

Perhaps this is an example of a trademark application that is literally lost in translation.

Will we see a .secure?

A Wisconsin company has filed an application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to get the service mark “.secure”.

The application from Asif LLC says it will be used for “Domain name registration services”, which likely means the company is eying new top level domain names. It could also be used as branding for a domain name registrar.

The USPTO won’t let you trademark a top level domain name, although companies have tried to slip them past previously. Some new top level domain name applicants have trademarked their “dot-term” in an attempt to get a leg up on the application process. It might scare away competitors in the case more than one company is interested in the same top level domain name. One proponent of .music has stated that he will use his non-U.S. trademarks for .music if necessary.

Perfume.com owner announces revenue and earnings for first half of 2010.

Live Current Media, who’s primary business is now running Perfume.com, announced shrinking revenue numbers for the second quarter 2010. But its losses also shrunk.

For Q2 the company grossed $696,376 in revenue, down 59% from last year. For the first half of the year, the company lost $311,945 compared to $2,331,839 for the same period last year. But note that this past quarter’s earnings included over $1 million in gains from sale of domain names and the realization of gains from the sale of cricket.com.

The company blames the falling revenue on both the recession and the planned transition of perfume.com from a discount fragrance site to a luxury brand site. It has hired a new firm to develop its upgraded web site. Hopefully this one will perform better than earlier design firms the company has hired, who charged way to much and delivered very little.

Domain name registrar will get close to $1 billion in cash flow this year.

The juggernaut continues its onward march.

The world’s largest domain name registrar, which manages four times as many domains as the second largest registrar, is quickly narrowing in on a billion dollars in annual cash flow.

This year Go Daddy’s forecast is a whopping $950 million in gross cash receipts, Domain Name Wire has confirmed with the company. This differs from revenue, as much of the company’s sales are amortized over 12 or more months. For example, if a registrar collects $12 for a domain registration, it will typically recognize $1 in revenue a month.

Last year the company had revenues of about $750 million. Given that the company continues to grow, pushing out amortization, you can figure it will do somewhere between $750M-$950M this year. In 2008 Go Daddy pulled in $500 million in revenue.

With 40 million to 50 million registrations, quick math shows that much of the companies revenue comes from non-domain products, such as web hosting and SSL certificates.

Will Go Daddy again test the IPO waters? That’s a tough question. It doesn’t need to go public to pay off its one investor (Bob Parsons), who may be happy watching the cash flow in as he bikes around the country and vacations at Cher’s old house. But I suspect some of the employees would like to see a public offering.

Well-known face in domainer circles launches ambitious ecommerce operations.

David Clements, former business partner of Rick Latona, has launched an e-commerce site at Cheesecake.com.

The domain name was originally listed with Latona’s for an auction, but the domain didn’t sell. After leaving the company, Clements negotiated through Latona to purchase the domain name. The domain was reported sold for $100,000 in May.

Cheesecake.com is a full-fledged e-commerce operation, currently involving a number of drop shippers and bakeries. The company is looking at buying locations around the country to ramp up production and sales.

After departing from Rick Latona’s business, Clements started looking at opportunities with Cheesecake.com co-founder Harvey Kaplan. Clements had helped Kaplan buy and sell domain names in the past.

“Harvey and I discussed getting in to e-commerce, and this was one of the ones that came across our radar that we thought we could make work,” said Clements. “We understood the challenges we were getting into,” he added.

“In a lot of ways we’ve gotten into the shipping business,” he said. “People that haven’t done this don’t realize how expensive shipping a perishable product like this is.”

In addition to the keyword power of Cheesecake.com, Clements was attracted to its existing SEO value. Clements said the company will launch an affiliate program within a couple weeks and is interested in hearing from people who would like to join.