Forging Connections for Survivors of Sexual Violence

For many survivors of violence, especially sexual violence, the trauma triggered by the violation is intensified by staying silent about the abuse. Fear of retaliation, denial, worries about being disbelieved, and misplaced shame and guilt for not getting away are among the chief reasons many survivors do not seek legal redress or share the painful experience with loved ones. Even after the #MeToo movement seemingly opened the floodgates of disclosures about past forced sexual contact, most sexual assaults are not reported to authorities.

In 2017, as an increasing number of survivors began publicly sharing their stories of past sexual abuses, Mintz began representing a California couple developing software designed to enable individuals harmed by the same person to communicate anonymously with one another. Mintz San Diego Intellectual Property attorneys Michael Van Loy and Nicholas Mouton embarked on a multiyear effort to protect the couple’s innovation with a US patent.

The invention allows users to add reports about violence to a private database maintained by the nonprofit along with one or more URLs identifying the accused’s social media profiles. If the system identifies other reports about the accused in the database, each user who reported a particular person receives a notification that provides the users a way to communicate anonymously with each other.

In the wake of the #MeToo movement, there was more public traction for speaking out against sexual violence. But this extra layer of support to help people come together and get the courage to speak up is very important.

Nicholas P. Mouton, Mintz Associate

In early 2018, Michael and Nicholas drafted a provisional patent application, filing it with the US Patent and Trademark Office that May. To avoid a patent office rejection based on a seminal 2014 US Supreme Court case that vastly altered the landscape for patenting software focused on methods of doing business — Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International — the attorneys carefully focused the patent’s language on the technical facets of the invention.

When the patent examiner assigned to the case issued a rejection of the patent on the merits in January 2023, Mintz attorney Mark Hammond joined the team to oversee the next phase of the matter. He sifted through multiple references describing related technology, known as prior art, to craft intricate arguments about how the unique features of the system’s algorithm qualified it as inventive. The patent office accepted Mintz’s arguments, issuing the patent in December 2023 and setting an expiration date that gives the nonprofit more than 16 years of protection against infringing uses.

Oftentimes, people have had traumatic experiences, but they’re not sure who they can turn to or exactly how to classify their experience. This tool is a way to connect survivors of sexual violence so that they can share stories with one another and ultimately understand that there is strength in numbers.

Mark D. Hammond, Mintz Associate