The United States Patent and Trademark Office has granted Verisign patent number 12,169,768. It was issued to the .COM gTLD registry for a tool that selects available domain names using a deep neural network. The brief description in the patent application does not reveal technical specifications, but it is reported that the tool generates domain names available for registration according to user preferences.
Domain Name Wire draws attention to a curious contradiction. As directly stated in the patent application, the innovation targets domain investors – an unexpected show of concern from Verisign. The company has been under heavy criticism for months for constantly raising rates in the .COM domain. Recently, it has been making not-so-convincing attempts to shift responsibility for the issue to domain investors. Verisign claims that the hype around .COM and high prices for domain names are not a result of systematic hikes by the registry, but rather stems from the greed of domain investors who buy up names and resell them at exorbitant prices.
Clearly, this does not contribute to better relations between Verisign and domain investors. But then why create a tool for their convenience? The answer is quite simple: the application for this tool was submitted to the patent office back in 2017, when price restrictions, imposed by the Obama administration, were in effect in the .COM domain. The Verisign registry was in dire need of investors and mass registrations to boost its revenue. Since then, the situation has changed significantly, but it took seven years to process and approve the application.
