{"id":267,"date":"2019-04-01T18:26:38","date_gmt":"2019-04-01T18:26:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/ipbytes\/?p=267"},"modified":"2024-07-16T03:39:41","modified_gmt":"2024-07-16T03:39:41","slug":"slowly-but-surely-closing-the-patent-gender-gap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/ipbytes\/slowly-but-surely-closing-the-patent-gender-gap\/","title":{"rendered":"Slowly But Surely: Closing The Patent Gender Gap"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Women\u2019s voices are underrepresented. Recent examples abound in news reporting<\/a>, Op-Eds<\/a>, economics<\/a>, and politics<\/a>. The patent world is no exception. Women still continue to make up just a small fraction, about 21 percent, of inventors<\/a> on patent applications, as noted in a recent USPTO Report<\/a>. However, women have been creating, designing, and innovating<\/a> for centuries.\u00a0 So, why is there a gap?<\/p>\r\n

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Photo by SLAC<\/a>.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n

Barriers for Innovative Women<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

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Historically, patent laws did not constrain women. The first U.S patent statute, The Patent Act of 1790<\/a>, placed no restrictions on gender. This may seem unremarkable. But, patent laws excluded black inventors<\/a> at one point.<\/p>\r\n

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However, state marital property laws did pose a barrier. Until the latter half of the 19th century, such laws prevented<\/a> married woman from legally owning property independent of their husbands. Such laws could have discouraged women from applying for a patent that they would not own. After all, women who chose to patent their inventions were often forced to have patents issued under their husbands or fathers names due to the property laws and the social norms at the time. From 1790 to 1895 only about 1 percent of patents<\/a> went to women.<\/p>\r\n

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From the Beginning<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

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Nonetheless, some women inventors persisted. In 1809, Mary Kies, used \u201cboth brains and a bonnet<\/a>\u201d to become the first woman to receive a patent from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for her stylish and innovative technique for weaving straw and silk to make hats.<\/p>\r\n

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Fast forward two hundred years. Women remain grossly underrepresented as\u00a0patent holders. Although the number of patents listing at least one female\u00a0inventor has increased <\/a>from less than 5 percent in the 1970s to 21 percent in 2016, the existence of a gender gap in the patent world is indisputable. This data could reflect past\u00a0social strictures and women\u2019s historical subordination.<\/p>\r\n

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While female inventorship is on the rise for mixed gender inventor teams,\u00a0inventorship for individual woman inventors and teams of all women inventors\u00a0made up only about 4 percent <\/a>of issued patents in the last decade. What\u2019s more troubling, as in\u00a0most institutions, the gender gap is even wider for women\u00a0of color<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n

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But there is hope. There are some technological areas where women\u2019s rate of\u00a0patenting has improved more significantly. For instance, women recently\u00a0accounted for more than one-fifth of inventors<\/a> granted patents in biotechnology (25 percent female inventor rate) and pharmaceuticals (23 percent). This is logical as most women in STEM fields<\/a> have careers and degrees in the biological sciences and chemistry as opposed to\u00a0physics or mechanical engineering. However, currently the most oft cited to\u00a0reason for why women lag behind men in patent inventorship is the scarcity<\/a> of women in the STEM fields.<\/p>\r\n

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Looking to the Future<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

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At the current rate of progress, women are expected to reach parity\u00a0in patenting<\/a> in 2092. This estimate is based on patenting rates since the\u00a0year 2000. However, perhaps women will reach that point sooner than predicted\u00a0given the current movement towards gender equality in many areas, including\u00a0ones that likely yield patentable inventions.<\/p>\r\n

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We have a long way to go, but organizations like Girls Who Code<\/a> that encourage girls to
enter the field of computer science from a young age can be a force that\u00a0bridges the gender gap. This organization is notably just one of\u00a0about twenty<\/a> encouraging girls in this area, which in the past had a much better gender\u00a0balance<\/a>. Likewise, the USPTO is taking steps. It is partnering with the\u00a0Intellectual Property Owners Education Fund and the Girl Scouts to provide an Intellectual Property Patch <\/a>that is designed to increase awareness and interest in the creation and\u00a0protection of intellectual property, particularly in relation to the STEM\u00a0fields.<\/p>\r\n

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As they say, the future is female.<\/p>\r\n

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Monika Malek
Associate Editor
Loyola University Chicago School of Law, J.D. 2020 <\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Women\u2019s voices are underrepresented. Recent examples abound in news reporting, Op-Eds, economics, and politics. The patent world is no exception. Women still continue to make up just a small fraction, about 21 percent, of inventors on patent applications, as noted in a recent USPTO Report. However, women have been creating, designing, and innovating for centuries.\u00a0 So, why is there a gap? Continue reading Slowly But Surely: Closing The Patent Gender Gap<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":4378,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,9],"tags":[115,138,147,223,232,291,357],"class_list":["post-267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fun-facts","category-patents","tag-gender-gap","tag-intellectual-property","tag-inventor","tag-patent","tag-patents","tag-stem","tag-women"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/ipbytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/ipbytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/ipbytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/ipbytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/ipbytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/ipbytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4380,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/ipbytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267\/revisions\/4380"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/ipbytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/ipbytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/ipbytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/ipbytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}