Verisign gets RDAP patent

Patent describes way to obtain information from “thick” RDAP records.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has granted patent number 12,250,217 to Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN) for GTLD domain name registries RDAP architecture (pdf).

The patent is a continuation of patents filed in 2016 and 2017.

RDAP is short for Registration Data Access Protocol, which has replaced Whois as the authoritative source for domain name registration records.

Verisign’s patent describes a way to collect registrant information from a “thick” RDAP provider, transfer it securely, and then present the results.

Verisign is the only remaining gTLD registry that maintains so-called “thin” RDAP/Whois records. These don’t contain registrant contact information, which is instead held by the registrar. “Thick” registries maintain the contact information themselves.

The full patent abstract reads:

Provided is a method for providing Registration Data Access Protocol (“RDAP”) responses. The method includes obtaining, at a RDAP client over a network, a RDAP query for RDAP data from a user; providing, by the RDAP client, the RDAP query and a cryptographic credential to a RDAP server, wherein the RDAP server communicates with one or more thick RDAP servers to provide respective thick RDAP answers to the RDAP query, wherein at least one the respective thick RDAP answers are encrypted using a symmetric or asymmetric cryptographic key associated with the cryptographic credential of the RDAP client; obtaining a consolidated thick RDAP answer to the RDAP query from the RDAP server; decrypting the consolidated thick RDAP answer using a symmetric or asymmetric cryptographic key associated with the cryptographic credential; and providing the thick RDAP answer that is decrypted to the user.

Verisign filed the patent application in October 2020 and the USPTO granted it today.