TL; DR
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Something is going on between the people behind the Ethereum Name Service (ENS) and Unstoppable Domains.
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The clash came when Unstoppbale Domains filed a patent that some people behind ENS felt gave them a legal claim to the innovations they had made.
Full story
So there is something going on between the people behind the Ethereum Name Service (ENS) and Unstoppable Domains.
Both sell Ethereum-based domain names (e.g. coolguy69.eth), but the folks at ENS were the first to develop the technology.
The clash came when Unstoppbale Domains filed a patent that some people behind ENS felt gave them a legal claim to the innovations they had made.
If this were to go back and forth personally, it might go something like this…
ENS: Hey, that patent you filed looks very close to the technology we developed.
Having a patent gives you control, and we don’t want this technology to be controlled by one company or entity. We want it to be open.
UD: Okay, well – similar or not – we have publicly committed to donating this patent The Web3 Domain Alliancewhich is about keeping this kind of technology open and free to build on.
…so we’re doing well, right?
ENS: If those are your intentions, that’s fine with us…
But right now it’s just a public announcement is it not legally binding.
So if you don’t want us to take you to court, we need a legally binding commitment that guarantees that this patent will become a public good.
UD: Your proposed solution does not take into account the fact that we want there to be multiple Web3 naming systems.
(Think: .eth, .crypto, .nft. Just like there is .com, .co, .io, etc. in Web2)
…and the only way to guarantee that future is to have a place where everyone (not just UD and ENS) works together. That is what our patent aims to achieve.
That’s pretty much what we’re doing at the time of writing – we’ll let you know if/when things progress further.