Company files patent application for improved whois searching across multiple registries.
Verisign has filed a patent with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for a “searchable web whois”. The application was filed in 2012 and just published today.
The patent application suggests that current whois search, especially across multiple registries, is hard. It claims that current services only search a single registry per search request, it’s difficult to index whois records in real time, it’s hard to make sense of whois data compared to other types of indexed documents, and parsing words in domain names is a challenge.
The application goes on to explain Verisign’s better system. I can’t quite figure out how it solves all of the problems the company identifies, at least any better than what other companies have already done. Perhaps this is one of those patents with a few unique claims. You can be the judge:
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