Zillow has, at this point, demonstrated an apt propensity for setting themselves up as future patent trolls and the U.S. Patent Office has been generous in granting their every last wish. It should come as no large surprise, then, that their latest endeavor to monopolize real estate searches comprises presentation of visual information by way of computation and other common factors – something that will further the real estate giant’s ubiquity in online markets.
The patent application itself describes, in detail, the practice of creating a three-dimensional model of a property, though a “2.5D representation” stipulation is also included in the patent.
The patent also mentions that the model may be “generated after the house is built” in order to display information about the inside of the property, and this generated model “may be displayed to a user of a client computing device in a displayed GUI with various user-selectable controls.”
Additionally, the patent describes the manner in which this model can be displayed, with references to a single, large pane that shows the interior of the house alongside smaller, “additional separate GUI pane(s)” that complement the information shown in the “first pane of the GUI.”
This attention to the use of “panes” and the order in which they are formatted has appeared in prior Zillow patents as well, the end result being a rapidly decreasing number of ways in which competing real estate sites can display similar information.
But the patent application doesn’t stop there.
The computational technology (referred to as “A system comprising: one or more hardware processors of one or more computing systems; and one or more memories with stored instructions”) is also mentioned, with explicit details regarding the process followed by the technology upon submission of a request by a user.
A key word in this section of the application is “automated” as it pertains to a search query.
Attempting to patent search engine automation does a better job of demonstrating just how generic this patent grab really is than perhaps anything else in the application.
Other key elements of the patent application include the ability to “navigate” through a property in a virtual model of the house or structure, simulated lighting as a part of the model, and more details about how this information is processed via mobile device.
Should Zillow manage to snag this patent, the results could be catastrophic for competing real estate sites, both search and brokerage.
Being able to show users an isometric model of a property while showcasing the floorplan is a highly convenient (and existing) feature of many real estate sites; by relegating it to Zillow and Zillow alone, those other sites will have to find new (and less-convenient) ways in which to showcase their properties, lest the Zillow patent troll sue them.
Jack Lloyd has a BA in Creative Writing from Forest Grove's Pacific University; he spends his writing days using his degree to pursue semicolons, freelance writing and editing, oxford commas, and enough coffee to kill a bear. His infatuation with rain is matched only by his dry sense of humor.
