USPTO granted Bashen U.S. Patent 6,985,922 B1 for her web-based Equal Employment Opportunity compliance software, originally called LinkLine.
On January 10, 2006, the United States Patent and Trademark Office officially issued U.S. Patent No. 6,985,922 B1, titled "Method, apparatus and system for processing compliance actions over a wide area network," to Janet Emerson Bashen and her co-inventors. This patent covered the technology behind her software product LinkLine (later rebranded as Nalikah), a web-based platform designed to help organizations intake, track, and manage Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) complaints and compliance actions.
The invention addressed a critical need in corporate and governmental human resources: a standardized, efficient, and legally defensible system for documenting workplace discrimination complaints and ensuring compliance with federal EEO regulations. Prior to LinkLine, much of this work was done manually or with disparate, non-integrated systems, making compliance tracking cumbersome and error-prone.
Bashen had first filed the patent application in 2001, and the grant in 2006 came after a rigorous five-year examination process by the USPTO. This achievement represented not only a personal triumph after years of technical and legal effort, but also a significant contribution to enterprise software for civil rights compliance, an area with direct implications for workplace equity across American industries.
The patent's issuance date is documented directly in USPTO records, making it one of the most precisely dated milestones in Bashen's career.