Welp. They did it. <\/p>\n
We\u2019ve been watching Zillow for some time now, and in the midst of even the strongest of OP Eds saying how terrible an idea it is, Uncle Sam officially handed them multiple patent keys<\/a> to tech they didn\u2019t invent<\/a>. <\/p>\n How big do you have to be before you can clout jack with this much impunity?<\/p>\n I\u2019m used to seeing this with small artists. Forever21\u2019s Etsy spies find a cute, simple design, maybe do the work to alter the pallate a smidgen and rely on the \u2018Matilda\u2019s Dad\u2019 strategy of \u201cI\u2019m smart, you\u2019re dumb, I\u2019m big, you\u2019re little, I\u2019m right, you\u2019re wrong, and our lawyers will argue the same, peasant\u2019. <\/p>\n But with technology, you can literally trace the code back to a source. It\u2019s not like using teeth as a motif, it\u2019s real, it\u2019s definite, and it\u2019s definitely really shocking that the government signed off on this. <\/p>\n Zillow\u2019s not exactly startup sized, they\u2019ve been in business since 2004. They\u2019re a big name. Their competition probably can\u2019t muscle their way in and out like they can. Matter fact, a company you may have heard of fighting them on patents has only been doing their doings since…wait, since 1911. Must be a tiny outfit, that was in some other business for over a century right? <\/p>\n It\u2019s IBM.<\/p>\n What le freaque? <\/p>\n We all need to be concerned about this level of government sanctioned patent jacking, no matter what field we\u2019re in. <\/p>\n I\u2019ve heard before that if you\u2019re just starting out, and low on funds, paying for your inventory and manpower are more important than filing anything with the government. Now we\u2019ve got fresh, bloody proof that that\u2019s 100% not true. <\/p>\n Your or your company\u2019s intellectual property can be deeded off with a factor no more elaborate than whether the patent office likes your face that day, regardless of what kind of trail you\u2019ve left, and as far as being run into the ground or laid off goes, that\u2019s hardly a non-factor. <\/p>\n This decision represents a higher financial barrier to entry for everyone from Amazon entrepreneurs to realtors daring to use tech as basic as texting in their business.<\/p>\n Yes, literally. <\/p>\n Zillow\u2019s patents, condensed for readability, are on:<\/p>\n Taking panoramic images for 3D walkthroughs<\/p>\n Multi-criteria search engines<\/p>\n And superimposing images scaled for size onto an area of land<\/p>\n Do all of those sound familiar? They should. We\u2019ve been using that tech for years. And Zillow\u2019s no Microsoft. <\/p>\n As always, we\u2019ll have to see how this plays out. But if your New Year\u2019s resolution was to take more bold steps in your business, maybe see if you can patent the idea of putting your picture in your email signature?<\/p>\n Apparently it couldn\u2019t hurt. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" (CORPORATE NEWS) This company was just granted not 1 patent but 3 on tech more than twice their age! What does it mean for you? Nothing good…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":337716,"featured_media":15004,"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_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[1905,1234,102],"class_list":["post-15001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-corporate","tag-real-estate-corporate","tag-real-estate-news","tag-zillow"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/01\/zillow-genius-patent-1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15001","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\/337716"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15001"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15001\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15007,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15001\/revisions\/15007"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}