An Examination and Interview Conversation on Today’s Patent Gender Gap

Patented products are versatile and diverse. They have the capacity to revolutionize, take the 3D printer. They can entertain adults and children, cue the Rubik’s Cube. And they can make us scratch our heads, like this 1876 mustache guard.

Lots of things that we use in daily life are patented. Patents give inventors rights over their invention. These rights include: the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, importing into the U.S., and selling that specific invention. A patent is like a reward from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office given to inventors with new and useful inventions.

Among inventors that receive patents, only 13 percent are women. This blog post will explore this patent gender gap and will include an interview from Juliette Fassett. Juliette is an entrepreneur and founder of Happy Products, Inc., which owns the patent for a multi-angle tablet stand called Flippy. Read more to learn how Juliette patented Flippy, the challenges in maintaining a patent, and empowering women in the patenting process.

The Road to Securing a Patent

Patents can also improve daily living for specific communities like women. Take SPANX, for example. SPANX produces smoothening shapewear that goes underneath clothing with the mission of helping women’s self-confidence. Sara Blakely is SPANX’s patent inventor. In an interview with Inc. Magazine, Blakely recalled launching the patent journey on her own after discovering there were no female patent attorneys in her state. Other attorneys were asking for more than she could afford.

As a woman, Blakely was among just 13 percent of female inventors when she first patented SPANX in the early 2000s.

This patent gender gap has the potential for real-life harm. A study published in Science Magazine suggests that the “dearth of female inventors” could lead to an undersupply of inventions that benefit women. This includes critical procedures and products for female patients with medical needs.

An article from STAT discusses a few suggestions for improving the patent gender gap:

1. Society should encourage women and girls at an early age to be innovators and entrepreneurs
2. Inventors should mentor women to help them “commercialize their ideas”
3. Relevant institutions should conduct robust evaluations of bias within the patenting process

The third suggestion is based on research that patent applications with women inventors are more likely to be rejected than those with male inventors.

These statistics and issues about the patent gender gap in obtaining and commercializing patents came to life for me when I interviewed Juliette.

Maintaining the patent

Juliette spoke to me about these potential hurdles and the particular challenges women involved in obtaining patents can face during this part of the process.

The following is an edited version of our discussion that includes my explanations for some IP lingo for those who may be less familiar. Text in brackets indicates my own words.

What is your invention and how did you go about patenting your product?

My invention is called Flippy. It's a three-sided, triangular, tablet stand. Very successful consumer product. It's actually the first product that I have patented. I have been involved in developing a lot of other products, and brands and products in different categories, but this is the first time that I invented something and actually got a patent on it. Because patenting is very expensive, I was lucky enough that my husband, who also is the co-inventor on the patent with me, had a friend who was a [patent attorney] and he actually helped us get the original patent.

Does your background lend itself to securing a patent for Flippy?

I'm a repeat entrepreneur. I've had a whole bunch of different businesses. More often than not, I've managed to make a living doing what I do. But getting a patent was a new gauntlet for me. I think one of the reasons that I was able to prevail and get a patent [and capitalize on it] is because I'm extremely scrappy and I knew how to bring products to market. I can imagine that if you had never had a business before—and if you had never developed something before—that the prospect of taking an idea through patenting, through to licensing [of the IP to other companies to make it] or developing a business around that IP would be extremely difficult. In addition to myself having developed many products and companies over the years, my husband has many patents to his name. We knew what we were up against when we took this on.

What drove you to pursue a patent on an innovative product for consumers?

People like me [who are] independent inventors tend to have fewer patents. And we go all-in on fewer patents, which is kind of natural, because we don't have a bunch of money to spend getting patents willy-nilly. And we tend to pick one problem and work really hard to solve it. That's what happened with me.

A buyer for a catalog company said to me, “We think that this product category of tablet stands could use some innovation and if you created a better tablet stand, we would want to look at it.” I had one business at the time but was always kind of curious and interested in product development. That's how I created Flippy—someone told me there was space in the market for it.

What are your thoughts on the different hurdles and challenges that women face in securing patents?

I think there are a couple of things. The data has not been proven, but there is some evidence that patent examiners are harder on women patent filers than they are on men. I think there's a natural misogyny that exists—conscious or unconscious.

Being a woman in this system, I think there are difficulties that aren't even well understood or acknowledged. Women, especially female entrepreneurs, tend to be disadvantaged financially. That's a big problem because patents are expensive [to obtain and maintain]. And I think women are not naturally encouraged to participate in the USPTO system.

Right now I am very, very discouraged about our IP system and the direction that it's gone. I know way too many women who have lost their patent rights at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) [which can issue decisions about issued patents that are challenged by third parties.] The fact that I know all these amazing women that have made the effort to create problem-solving products and patent them in the first place is astounding. We [women inventors] only make up 13% of the patents that are awarded. But on top of that, that I should know so many women that have lost their patent rights, and had their lives destroyed as a result of it. No, it's not right.

Are there policies or initiatives that should exist to empower women in their patent journeys?

Whether or not it's women or minorities [who] are more adversely affected by PTAB rulings [that invalidate patents], we just know that PTAB has an 80% plus "kill rate" on patents and that corporations are absolutely driving that. I think there needs to be some kind of safe passage, something that helps women and minority inventors protect themselves more. I don't know what the answer is. It's actually something that I'm working on with groups of people to try to figure out if there's something that can be changed at the policy level. I don't know what the answer is.

I think it's empowering to hear that there are people like you and others who are trying to come up with a solution.

At Fair Inventing, which is the nonprofit that I'm on the board of, [solutions fall] under the umbrella of access to justice. Access to justice simply means money. You have to have money to be able to afford justice because our system is so coin-operated. Without that sort of financial support for litigation, it's really hard for any of us to prevail.

Maris Medina
Associate Editor
Loyola University Chicago School of Law, J.D. 2025