Afilias Limited

Michael Runcieman

Hui Zhou

Jimmy Lam

James M Galvin

Shuqin Sun

Cedarampattu Mohan

Howard Eland

Steven Singer

Ashish Luthra

A method for coordinating transactions for domain names to register a plurality of domain names with a domain name portfolio stored in a storage, such that each of the domain names in a plurality of domain names belongs to only the domain name portfolio as a unique member of the domain name portfolio; associate a portfolio account with the domain name portfolio, the portfolio account configured for managing a pool of funds available for use in payment of the transactions for said each of the domain names of the plurality of domain names; receive credit payment instructions attributed to the portfolio account, the credit payment instructions containing a credit payment amount; record the credit payment amount against the pool of funds in order to increase a level of the pool of funds; receive debit payment instructions associated with a domain name of the domain name portfolio and domain name transaction information associated with the transaction for the domain name; record the debit payment amount against the pool of funds in order to decrease the level of the pool of funds; and generate and send a periodic report over the network detailing the level of the pool of funds and the transaction applied against two or more of the domain names as members of the domain name portfolio.

Coordinating transactions for domain names administered using a domain name portfolio

A method for using a self-signed digital certificate for establishing a secure connection between an Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP) client and a server on a communications network, including: receiving a communicated self-signed certificate from the EPP client; obtaining a unique identifier of the EPP client, the unique identifier associated with a domain name stored in a Domain Name System (DNS); using the unique identifier to access a designated DNS record in a DNS zone of the DNS associated with the domain name; retrieving the copy of the digital certificate from the designated DNS record, the copy of the digital certificate containing a public key of the EPP client bound to the domain name; authenticating the copy of the digital certificate with the communicated self-signed certificate; and receiving a generated session key from the EPP client to establish the secure connection over the communications network with the EPP client.

Domain name management with network entity authentication using self-signed certificates

A method for synchronizing management of a plurality of domain names in a Domain Name System (DNS). The method comprises the following steps: receiving a request from a domain name registrant for an action as an operation on an object unique to a domain name of the DNS, the domain name having synchronized objects with another domain name being stored as a domain name bundle including the domain name in a domain name database; changing the object in the domain name database according to the action; identifying the another domain name in the domain name bundle; requesting a change to a corresponding object to the object for the another domain name with the action in order to propagate the operation performed on the object to the corresponding object, the corresponding object being unique to the another domain name; and forwarding a reported result of the action to the domain name registrant, the object and the corresponding object representing the synchronized objects by having the same parameter value, an owner to all domain names in the domain name bundle being the domain name registrant.

Domain name registration and management

A method for synchronizing management of a plurality of domain names in a Domain Name System (DNS), which method comprises: receiving a synchronization request for synchronizing a first object related to a first renewal date of a first domain name with a second object related to a second renewal date of a second domain name, the synchronization request including an explicit identifier only of the first domain name but not of the second domain name; locate both the first object and the second object in a domain name database; determining a renewal date which is earlier than at least one of the first renewal date and the second renewal date; and synchronizing as a backwards synchronization operation the first object and the second object to both have said renewal date, such that both the first domain name and the second domain name are configured to expire on said renewal date.

Domain name registration and management for renewal date synchronization

A method for distributing a domain name to one of a plurality of registrars, in communication with a drop zone server, the method executing stored instructions by a computer processor to: recognize a delete command of the domain name; determine if the delete command is inside or outside of an Add Grace Period (AGP), the AGP defined as a period of time post registration of the domain name by a registrar; if the delete command is inside of the AGP, then send the domain name to the drop zone server in a path that bypasses a delete queue for subsequent purchase by said one of the plurality of registrars; or if the delete command is outside of the AGP, then send the domain to the delete queue.

Growing community of inventors

Toronto, Canada

Michael Runcieman