{"id":13939,"date":"2019-01-30T13:31:04","date_gmt":"2019-01-30T19:31:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/?p=13939"},"modified":"2019-01-30T13:31:06","modified_gmt":"2019-01-30T19:31:06","slug":"zillow-utility-patents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/corporate\/zillow-utility-patents\/","title":{"rendered":"Zillow patent apps claim they invented AVMs, uploading home data via mobile"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It appears that online real estate search giant, Zillow, is applying for some pretty interesting utility patents. They currently have in four applications with the U.S. Patent Office, including automatically determining the current value for a home, the capture and use of a building interior data from mobile devices, and connecting and using building interior data acquired from mobile devices.

So, patents on AVMs and uploading data about a house via smartphone. <\/strong>

A\u00a0claim\u00a0that\u00a0they\u00a0invented\u00a0both\u00a0and\u00a0should\u00a0hold\u00a0the\u00a0patents.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

First things first, what\u2019s a utility patent?

Regarding inventions, U.S. Code<\/a> defines a utility patent as “any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof.” Patents are instructions from inventors telling the public how to use their invention.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are two kinds of patents \u2013 utility and design. Design\npatents are less detailed requiring only drawings of one\u2019s design and a very\nlimited text explanation. Utility patents require drawings, diagrams and very detailed explanations of\nhow the invention works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zillow has recently applied for\nfour patents. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two for separate patents for automatically\ndetermining a current value for a home. See here<\/a> and here<\/a>. Both of these include inventions that would have the ability to locate\na home in a particular area as described by a user and thus offer the user the\nselling price and recently sold price through the evaluation of a home\u2019s\nparticular attributes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The third<\/a> is for the capture and use of a building\u2019s interior data from mobile devices. This could mean using a phone\u2019s camera to analyze the interior of a home to generate a representation of the home\u2019s interior, for example. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The last\npatent<\/a> is for connecting and using building\ninterior data acquired from mobile devices which could mean automating\nthe operations used to acquire images of a home\u2019s interior such as using a\nphone to capture video for multiple views to put together a virtual\nrepresentation of a home. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, why is this important?

Utility patent applications are time intensive and super costly starting at around a few thousand dollars for simple inventions and leaping into the tens of thousands range for more complex ideas and technologies.

Considering the cost alone, one could assume that Zillow has something pretty big in store for the future or at the very least, some pretty lofty goals.

If granted, these patents would instantly put Zillow at odds with the majority of real estate tech companies and brokerages.<\/strong>

Could this have anything to do with rumors of their potentially being acquired<\/a> in 2019?

Or could it having something to do with the expansion<\/a> of Zillow Offers, the company\u2019s direct home-buying and selling service?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe Zillow\u2019s just attempting to quash their competition?

Or maybe they’re looking to boost revenues with some good old fashioned <\/strong>patent trolling<\/strong><\/a>… <\/strong>

Time will tell what Zillow’s patent rampage means, or if the Trademark Office will even grant these patents.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(CORPORATE) Zillow has applied for a handful of utility patents, and their invention claims will shock the real estate industry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":337708,"featured_media":12803,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[1234,102],"class_list":["post-13939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-corporate","tag-real-estate-news","tag-zillow"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2018\/01\/zillow-group.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/337708"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13939"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13939\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13951,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13939\/revisions\/13951"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}