{"id":14001,"date":"2019-02-13T12:12:30","date_gmt":"2019-02-13T18:12:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/?p=14001"},"modified":"2019-02-13T12:12:32","modified_gmt":"2019-02-13T18:12:32","slug":"zillow-patent-grab-advances-now-seeking-patent-on-automated-rental-rates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/corporate\/zillow-patent-grab-advances-now-seeking-patent-on-automated-rental-rates\/","title":{"rendered":"Zillow patent grab advances, now seeking patent on automated rental rates"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We recently reported that Zillow is scooping up patents<\/a> faster than developers are bulldozing Central Austin single family homes to build two modern half-million dollar homes in their place. \u00a0And since then, Zillow\u2019s showing no signs of slowing down. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The online real estate search giant applied for another utility patent for automatically determining market rental rate index for properties\u00a0<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And what is that you ask? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This application patents Zillow\u2019s ability to determine and\nindex the market rental rate for homes in a geographic area. By accessing the\ncurrent market rental rate of every home in each area, they can automatically\ncompare them to similar homes to obtain aggregate results. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This functionality isn\u2019t new. Other sites use similar functions\nto help renters find homes in the areas of their choosing at prices they are\nwilling to pay. However, as we stated, utility\npatent applications are time intensive and the cost alone raises eyebrows. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because if granted these patents, Zillow will be putting themselves at odds with their direct competition and other heavy hitters in the real estate search engine space. No biggie, it’s a free market, but brokers (who butter their bread) also feature automated rental rate tools, many not from Z.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As\nwe mentioned before, this calls into question the unsavory practice of patent\ntrolling. Patent trolls weaponize patents by scooping up patents from other\ncompanies instead of coming up with new ideas or technologies. In this case, it\nmeans grabbing patents for common technology, such as functionality that allows\na user to compile a list of homes with desirable attributes in their prices\nrange. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This kind of technology is already commonly used by several companies and some tell us they believe it shouldn\u2019t need a patent in the first place. However, if Zillow\u2019s applications for the patents go through, they can use them to threaten competing companies with legal action for infringement or failure to pay licensing fee<\/em>s for use of said tech.

Alternatively, this could be a brilliant move by Zillow to protect their intellectual property, their very own special way of automating this data, and that too is a smart business move.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\ndon\u2019t know how this shakes out, but we\u2019ll definitely be keeping a close eye out\nfor updates. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(REAL ESTATE) Zillow has been applying for utility patents left and right, now adding rental Zestimates to the list.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":337708,"featured_media":9966,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[1234,1797,102],"class_list":["post-14001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-corporate","tag-real-estate-news","tag-real-estate-patent","tag-zillow"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2016\/12\/zillow.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14001","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=14001"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14001\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14002,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14001\/revisions\/14002"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}