Patent website, still doesn’t disclose its IP plans — Verisign creates
Domain name registry shows off its patent portfolio, but still won’t say how it plans to make money from it.
Verisign has created a website dedicated to its patents and released a whitepaper regarding its intellectual property – but still won’t say how it plans to monetize its IP portfolio.
Yesterday the firm formally unveiled VerisignPatents.com, a sort of patent marking site that lists all of its patents.
For example, under the header “Domain Registry Services”, the firm lists six patents that it claims protect its fresh gTLD services.
Fresh Generic Top-level Domain (gTLD) Services
Verisign Product, Fresh gTLD Services, are protected by the following U.S. Patent Nos.: 8,140,884; 8,327,019; 7,467,140; 8,090,693; 7,299,299; 8,527,945
The firm also published a whitepaper titled Innovation + Initiatives that details “Verisign’s systematic approach to innovation and its extensive portfolio of intellectual property.”
On the firm’s analyst conference call yesterday, one analyst asked if Verisign’s IP monetization plans just involved extracting royalties from competing registries. Verisign CEO James Bidzos responded “It’s more than that.”
Bidzos states the firm is still evaluating its options for monetizing the IP. It will be interesting to see how aggressive the firm is in going following competing registries, and how this might affect its future contract renewal for the .com namespace.
