Our Commitment to Supporting Web3 Innovation through Patents

At Unstoppable Domains, we've invested heavily in protecting our intellectual property (IP), including through patents, to ensure that our industry maintains the freedom to keep innovating. 

We often get questions about our investments in patents, and some have questioned whether patents are aligned with the ethos of Web3. Here’s the truth: Investing in patents is the only way we can preserve the ability of the Web3 industry to innovate. 

Shortly after our founding, incumbents in the domain industry started filing for patents related to blockchain domains, presenting an existential threat to our industry. If granted, those incumbents could enforce blockchain domain patents against Unstoppable Domains, .eth, and other upstarts. They could block out innovation entirely. Realizing this, we moved quickly to start investing in patents like our patent for resolving blockchain domains. 

Web3 domains have lower lifetime costs for users and enhanced capabilities like on-chain verifications for crypto addresses and other off-chain data. Our community deserves to see this technology continue to thrive, and we have a responsibility to them to protect our IP. 

More importantly, we want the entire Web3 space to be protected and to be able to keep innovating. That’s why we’ve unilaterally pledged the free use of our patent for resolving blockchain domains (U.S. Pat. No. 11,558,344) to members of the Web3 Domain Alliance and, more recently, to .eth. Read more about our commitment here. 

By extending support of our patents to others in our industry, we’ll help support a flourishing, dynamic, Web3 naming ecosystem. We’re proud to support the Web3 domain industry through this commitment, and we urge the Web3 industry to ensure that they're protected with regard to patents, trademarks and other IP. By doing so, we can continue to innovate and create a brighter future for the Internet.

If you’re a responsible player working to build a better Internet with Web3 domains, we’d love to hear from you. Join us.