{"id":17479,"date":"2021-06-15T12:44:16","date_gmt":"2021-06-15T17:44:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/?p=17479"},"modified":"2021-06-15T12:44:16","modified_gmt":"2021-06-15T17:44:16","slug":"huge-patent-grab-from-zillow-what-next","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/corporate\/huge-patent-grab-from-zillow-what-next\/","title":{"rendered":"Zillow: This HUGE patent grab has us asking, what’s left?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Zillow is no stranger to controversy, largely due to their propensity for acquiring obscenely broad patents. These patents often expand Zillow\u2019s privileges while limiting the mobility of competing real estate companies\u2019 websites and apps, elevating Zillow\u2019s position in the market along the way. Now, Zillow is applying for a monster of a patent<\/a>\u2014one that, if granted, would effectively bar every other real estate service from the market.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve written extensively about Zillow\u2019s overzealous acquisition of patents<\/a> that, by and large, demonstrate a desire to complicate the daily operations of competing real estate services. Those patents have included the presentation of photos<\/a> on real estate sites and how information is formatted<\/a>, the commonality being that Zillow\u2019s patent requests have been so vaguely worded that competing businesses are forced to alter significantly their practices.<\/p>\n

For example, their patent regarding photo use prevents anyone other than Zillow from portraying photos, panoramas, or videos in such a way that they \u201csimulate movement\u201d through a house. This basically means that other real estate services will be forced to arrange their photos in a nonsensical way, thus reducing site usability and increasing the likelihood that former users will migrate to Zillow.<\/p>\n

The real estate monolith has also sued competitors for copyright infringement<\/a>, most notably going after Trulia for having the audacity to tailor search results based on \u201cinput\u201d from a user.
\nThis most recent patent request<\/a> makes it clear that Zillow has no intention of stopping their rampage\u2014at least, not without achieving a literal monopoly in the process. In summary, the patent would afford Zillow complete control over \u201cvalidation and optimization in an online marketing platform for home sellers.\u201d<\/p>\n

In simple terms, the patent refers to any technology or tools used to support the process of real estate searches.<\/p>\n

The patent summary corroborates this interpretation: \u201cIn some embodiments, the disclosed technology provides a validation tool for users of the online marketing platform to quality check the users’ home feeds in real-time through a graphical user interface of the online marketing platform. In some embodiments, the disclosed technology provides an optimizer tool for the users to optimize the users’ home feeds through a graphical user interface\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

This summary concludes with, \u201cThe users of the online marketing platform can be home sellers, which can include, for example, home builders, brokers, and their agents,\u201d describing what one would reasonably assume comprises all possible real estate clients.<\/p>\n

Restricting the act of searching for real estate to Zillow alone would prevent competition, full stop. With the power to sue anyone who allowed their real estate listings to be browsed or searched, Zillow would control the entire real estate market for all parties, including home builders. Obviously, this is a problem for several reasons.<\/p>\n

The most glaring problem here is that any monopoly is cause for alarm, and the current housing market does not seem poised to benefit from a lack of variety in listing agencies\u2014especially in the wake of COVID and the turmoil we can feasibly expect for years to come.<\/p>\n

The patent also fails to take into consideration that Zillow, for all their innovation, did not create the features to which they\u2019re staking their claim. While they may have used search engines with a level of effectiveness heretofore unchallenged by competitors, the fact remains that this patent\u2019s contents cannot, in good conscience, be attributed wholly to Zillow.<\/p>\n

Zillow\u2019s justification alleges that homeowners who list their properties on multiple different sites face a \u201csteep learning curve\u201d that can hinder their progress since not all sites use the same listing process and selling tools, but the irony of this faux-concern couldn\u2019t be clearer: By manipulating patents to purposely obfuscate listings on competitors\u2019 sites, Zillow has created the very problem they claim to want to solve.<\/p>\n

As this situation develops, bear in mind that Zillow\u2019s predatory patent-trolling may dictate the course of this country\u2019s real estate market for decades to come if they are allowed to continue expanding unchecked.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(REAL ESTATE CORPORATE) Zillow\u2019s latest patent bid is terrifyingly broad and will likely lead to a real estate monopoly, if it’s granted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":337375,"featured_media":17480,"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":[2217,1954,1905,1234,102],"class_list":["post-17479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-corporate","tag-online-real-estate","tag-patents","tag-real-estate-corporate","tag-real-estate-news","tag-zillow"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/06\/ZillowAgent.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17479","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\/337375"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17479"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17479\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17484,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17479\/revisions\/17484"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}