The patent, which has a priority date of November 2015, covers Fama’s core method, system, and machine learning architecture used for searching, analyzing, and classifying online activity.

Fama Technologies, Inc., the pioneer and market leader in AI-powered online screening, today announced that the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has allowed all claims in its patent application covering the foundational technology behind social media background screening. The patent, titled “System for Searching and Correlating Online Activity with Individual Classification Factors,” has a priority date of November 30, 2015, establishing Fama as the original inventor of the technology that has since become a critical component of modern hiring and risk management.

The allowed patent encompasses 22 claims spanning key components of Fama’s technology pipeline: extracting personally identifiable information from source documents, retrieving online activity from social media platforms and websites, transforming unstructured image data into structured datasets using object recognition, classifying content using machine learning algorithms trained on inter-rater agreements, and presenting results through an interactive reporting interface.

“We’ve been building this technology since 2015, long before social media screening was recognized as an essential part of the hiring process,” said Ben Mones, Founder and CEO of Fama Technologies. “This patent validates what our customers and partners already know: Fama didn’t just enter the online screening market, we created it. The core technology that powers the category was invented here.”

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A Decade of Innovation

Fama’s patent journey began with a provisional application filed on November 30, 2015, when non-tech players in the market proliferated. Ever since, Fama has worked with a series of lawyers, IP experts, and USPTO examiners to navigate the patent approval process, eventually securing the IP in March 2026.

Over that period Fama’s feature set has also evolved to include video analysis, multilingual screening, and monitoring. It has also developed a series of unique approaches to identifying web content about profiles about a person. Based on this evolution, the company has also filed a continuation patent application to expand its intellectual property portfolio with additional claims covering the same foundational technology.

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Market Context

Fama strengthened its position in the market with the 2023 acquisition of Social Intelligence, one of the first market entrants and an early pioneer in the space. In 2011, Social Intelligence worked with the FTC to legalize and establish the compliance framework for social media screening. Bringing the two companies together meshed Fama’s unique technological IP with Social Intel’s gold standard in compliance. Fama has built on that foundation with a compliance-first AI-powered solution designed for enterprise use. Today, as more organizations incorporate online screening into hiring and workforce risk management, Fama’s patent further reinforces its position as the long-term technology leader in the space.

“As the online screening market matures, intellectual property becomes increasingly important,” added Mones. “For customers and partners, this patent reinforces that the technology powering Fama is proprietary, built for long term reliability and developed on a foundation of genuine innovation.”