Identity Digital gets patent for “Whitelist domain name registry”

Invention explains ways to approve entities to register restricted domain names.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office today granted patent number 11,552,923 (pdf) to Identity Digital for “Whitelist domain name registry”.

Some top level domains have registration requirements, such as ID verification, in order for people to register domains. The patent discusses ways to manage identification requirements between registries and registrars. The abstract reads:

Systems and methods for managing domain name registrations in accordance with rules and regulations of a domain name verification system are disclosed. The disclosed technology enables a domain name verification system to regulate the registration of domain names in accordance with its own domain name registration policies. This disclosed system uses a “whitelist” domain name registry to register “whitelist domain names” once pre-approval to register a corresponding target domain name has been granted. In this manner, the whitelist domain name registry system acts as a repository for pre-approved domain name registrations and enables pre-qualified registrants (including potential or prospective registrants) to then register a target domain name.

It describes the systems and methods as:

The disclosed technology enables a domain name registration manager or verification system to regulate the registration of domain names in accordance with its own domain name registration policies. This disclosed system uses a “whitelist” domain name registry to register “whitelist domain names” once pre-approval to register a corresponding target domain name has been granted. Once the registrant and/or registrar are established to be qualified, the facility can generate a whitelist domain name for the whitelist domain name registry (e.g., “registrantID.registrarlD.donuts.domains.valid.zone”) and register the generated whitelist domain name with the whitelist domain name registry. In this case, the “valid.zone” subdomain of the “.zone” top level domain acts as a domain for registering whitelist domain names. Thus, the “valid.zone” subdomain is a “whitelist domain” for registering whitelist domain names. Subsequent attempts to register the domain name “donuts.domains” can be checked against the whitelist registry to determine whether the registrant and/or registrar attempting to register “donuts.domains” is/are pre-approved to register “donuts.domains.” In this manner, the whitelist domain name registry system and its associated DNS server act as a repository for pre-approved domain name registrations and enable the pre-qualified registrants (including potential or prospective registrants) to then register a target domain name.

For the most part, top level domain names that have verification requirements have struggled. Domain registrars prefer not to sell domain names that have requirements that add friction to the registration process.

Paul Stahura, who was CEO at the time of the application, and Chris Cowherd, who was CTO, are listed as inventors.

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