Application covers aspects of Uniregistry Market.
Frank Schilling has filed a patent application (pdf) with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to cover certain aspects of his company’s domain name marketplace, now called Uniregistry Market.
The application was filed in June 2016 and just published today. Schilling previously filed a provisional application in 2012 and an application (now abandoned) in 2013.
Titled “Domain Name Marketplace With Mobile Sales And Brokerage Platform”, the application’s abstract reads:
An online platform for the listing and sale of internet domain names includes a web server for receiving purchase inquiries from buyers and a messaging facility for communicating inquiries to sellers who have listed domain names for sale through the platform. A mobile communication application provides sellers with immediate access to purchase inquiries, valuation tools, consultation facilities and brokerage delegation tools by which sellers may efficiently engage buyers in response to purchase inquiries. The online platform leverages the ability of domain names to identify an online location in order to use the domain name itself as a communication channel, in addition to facilitating other channels of communication between buyer and seller.
You’ll notice that the images in the application are dated images from the old Domain Name Sales system.
The patent lists Schilling and Ying Han as inventors.
Jan de Wit says
If the application is granted, what would the effect be on its competitor market places? Does it mean that no one else could have a domain marketplace like DNS? Would be strange to grant such a patent..
Mike says
I wonder what the reasoning for this is, as it is obvious they did not invent domain marketplaces.
Ron says
Pretty sure godaddy has been doing this for a while.
Michael Anthony Castello says
It’s a pretty broad patent. I’ve been creating stuff on the web since 1994 and I have a lots of “first use” applications but never opted for any patents. Patent are intellectual property and valuable in the future sale of any business.
John says
Where does that leave Afternic, NameJet, Sedo and others?
HG says
In the garbage – where they belong.
Garth says
A good back stop if a blatant copy cat came along. I revisited the other two market places recently. The sites are unusable/frustrating for bulk, cosmetic changes year after year at the core dated.
Fred says
What a patent troll.. Oh yeah he invented domain marketplaces. They should be ashamed to do this, what a disgrace. They give domain investors a bad name
Andrew Allemann says
There’s a big difference between applying for a patent and suing someone over a patent you have. Godaddy has hundreds of patents but as far as I know they haven’t sued anyone over them yet. They’ve just come in handy defensively when someone has tried to sue them.
Garth says
Aspects of it are different. Its in the detail.
Busy year for IBM http://www.ificlaims.com/index.php?page=misc_top_50_2016
Joseph Peterson says
Frank Schilling’s business depends greatly on good will among domainers and other domain industry companies. If Uniregistry were to sue some new small market place based on this patent, the damage to his brand and bottom line would be severe.
He’s too smart not to know that. Plus, Schilling doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy who’d sue GoDaddy or Sedo – not only because they’d beat him in court but because he comes across (however much one might disagree with him) as a nice fellow.
Seems like a defensive move or a way of formalizing or adding to the company’s assets.
John says
But…if others have been doing it for years before this, how can they even award such a patent? Is it really just all in the details? What’s quoted here sure doesn’t seem like it.
steve brady says
In order to receive a USPTO Notice of Allowance it has to solve a problem that currently isn’t being solved OR it has to show how it improved an area of an existing invention. The improvement can be patented.
The patent will not prevent competitors from continuing with their same process, just copying the new process claimed in the new patent. But they can improve his process and get a patent on that. Get it.
Anthony Mitchell says
The patent application isn’t for a marketplace, it’s for the method of using an app rather than a browser to access the marketplace. Business method patents should not be allowed, IMHO, because it stifles innovation. But as long as the system operates in its current form, Uni is smart to defend itself in this manner.
Steve says
Relax my fellow domainers.
First, the legal rights of a patent are defined by the claims. Read those if you want to actually understand exactly what Frank has applied to obtain.
Second, this is an application, not an issued patent. Big difference. Only those claims which survive patent office examination matter. Furthermore, the claims in the application are highly likely to not be the claims which end up being issued.
And finally, Frank’s not going to sue anyone. The bad will that doing so would engender in our very insular industry would not be worth it.
Clarence says
Wheres berryhill when u need him
Oh
On schillings yacht