Reglikedomain industry desk

Sued for Sending Domain Renewal Notices — Go Daddy

Does sending renewal reminders violate patents?

This isn’t meant to be a shock headline. It’s true.

WhitServe LLC has filed a patent infringement lawsuit (pdf) against GoDaddy.com based on the renewal notices it sends to clients. WhitServe states the method by which Go Daddy sends these notices and allows clients to renew their expiring domain names violates two of its patents:

-US Patent 5,895,468 for System Automating Delivery Of Professional Services

-US Patent 6,182,078 for System For Delivering Professional Services Over The Internet

WhitServe has sued numerous other firms over the same patents.

While Go Daddy itself has filed a number of patents that may seem a bit questionable, I’m not aware of any time it has tried to enforce them — except against a firm that had sued it over other patents.

By the way, I own PatentTroll.com and PatentTrolls.com.

Also on the wire

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