First patent related to system for generating geo domain names is granted.
Back in 2009 GoDaddy released a geo domain tool that allowed you to find domain names specific to a location, e.g. AustinAllergists.com.
Last year I reported that GoDaddy filed three patent applications related to the tool.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has now granted a patent to GoDaddy covering the technology.
U.S. patent 8,489,746 is titled “Systems for suggesting domain names from a geographic location data”. It was originally filed as “Suggesting Domain Names from a GPS Location”.
You can view the patent here (pdf).
Inventors listed on the patent include Adam Dicker, owner of DNForum and a former GoDaddy employee, Paul Nicks, current Director of Product Development for GoDaddy, and Robert Bacus.
Of the other two patents filed in conjunction with this one, one is facing a final rejection notice and the other is still pending.
The Geo Domain tool is still online at geo.godaddy.com.
Robert Bacus being the lead developer that put together what I think is still a very cool (if also very niche) tool.
I couldn’t find any info about Robert online. Thanks for filling in that detail.
Well I just tried the tool for my own home town Montgomery (also the name of many geo localities across the USA) and nothing came up at all. I know that there are tons of domains for sale with the keyword “Montgomery” in it, so I am not impressed. Maybe I did something wrong, but if so, then it’s not very intuitive. Maybe it should be described in the patent application as “Systems for NOT suggesting domain names from a geographic location data.” But thanks as always for finding these stories Andrew, I knew nothing of this tool prior to your post.