Domain Name Wire | Domain Name News & Website Stuff

Domain Name Industry News and Website Stuff

Featured Domains

Chad Folkening gets patent for “Platform for building virtual entities using equity systems”

by — Services 1 Comment

Patent covers aspects of Contrib system for domain names.

A diagram from Folkening’s patent.

Chad Folkening was on the Domain Name Wire Podcast discussing Contrib last month. At a high level, it’s a system for developing domain names by engaging contributors.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office just granted patent number 9,787,760 to Folkening for “Platform for building virtual entities using equity systems”.

The patent describes many aspects of the system, including the contribution of domain names to the system, valuation of domain names, issuing equity to contributors of both domain names and the development process (which Folkening plans to do via a cryptocurrency), and applying contributions across multiple domain names.

There are some interesting aspects of this ambitious idea. You can read the patent here (pdf).

Afilias gets patent related to community top level domains

by — Services 0 Comments

Patent describes way to verify registrant information to create trust and community.

An explanatory graphic from Afilias’ patent.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office granted patent 9,747,378 (pdf) to Afilias this week for “Linked web presence pages associated with a top level domain”.

I was a bit confused about what the patent covered and if the technology behind it had been implemented, so I reached out to Afilias for an explanation. Its explanation is a better description of the patent than I could come up with:

US Patent 9747378 stemmed from work by Afilias on a way to support the ability of community oriented TLDs to help the registrants gain exposure and interaction. Specifically, the patent addresses two important aspects of community building. The first is to add credibility that a particular registrant and domain name is a bonafide participant in the community.

It does this by cross checking various public sources of data against the registrant’s information and verifying the match. A proper match elevates the profile of a registrant and their domain name and gives other members of the community more confidence in dealing with them.The second is to enable the registrant to self-add functionality to their web presence by enabling things like: accepting donations, offering chat service, posting a twitter feed, allowing comments, and providing customer service.

Afilias says the concept is a result of Afilias’ support of various community-oriented TLDs, although none have specifically deployed the capability at this time.

Verisign files name spinning patent application

by — Services 2 Comments

Application for name spinning patent published today.

.Com domain name registry Verisign has filed a patent application (pdf) with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office that covers various aspects of generating domain name alternatives, aka name spinning.

The application was filed in December 2015 and just published today.

Abstract: Provided are methods, devices, and computer-readable media for accessing a domain name; determining, via the processor, at least two words in the domain name; determining at least one alternative word for at least one word in the domain name; determining whether the at least one alternative word is contextually relevant; and generating at least one alternative domain name based on a determination that the at least one alternative word is contextually relevant.

While the application explains a couple different ways of finding the alternative domains, I’m sure many in the domain name business would argue that the crux of the idea has been in practice by multiple parties for over a decade.

Verisign gets patent for evaluating typeability of domain names

by — Uncategorized 0 Comments

Patent describes ways to score domain names based on how easy it is to type them on different keyboards.

verisign typing patent

Verisign’s patent describes a way to figure out how challenging it is to type a domain name on different keyboard types.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has granted patent number 9,195,316 to Verisign for “Evaluating typeability of domain names.”

The patent describes a way of taking different inputs, namely the layout/type of keyboard, and then figuring out how easy it is to type a particular domain name.

For example, a domain name might be easy to type due to where the letters are on a standard QWERTY laptop keyboard. Typeability might be different on an iPhone keyboard and Blackberry.

Typeability scores could be useful information for domain name registrants, especially as the web moves to mobile phones. Beyond the context of the domain name I’m considering, and its length, how easily can someone type it on an iPhone?

GoDaddy patent app describes mobile domain name transfer system

by — Domain Registrars 5 Comments

A faster, more secure way to transfer domain names for in-person transactions?

Picture this: you’re at NamesCon in January when you strike a deal with a fellow domainer to sell a domain name to them. You both pull out your phones, activate an app, keep the phones near each other, and then click a few buttons to instantly transfer the domain name to them.

That’s the basic idea of a patent application (pdf) by GoDaddy that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office published yesterday. Click to continue reading…