The pandemic broke our long-accepted beliefs that a good education can only happen in a physical classroom, with a teacher imparting lessons to all students. It underscored the importance of a new approach to learning. While virtual lessons were a crucial stop-gap solution, we need to recognise that this crisis has presented us with an opportunity to change the way we educate our children – that we can herald a new future of education with the help of innovative technologies like artificial intelligence (AI). With new technologies available, teaching can be done in a different, even more effective way.

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Increasing participation in invention and patenting by underrepresented groups would quadruple the number of American inventors, increase annual U.S. GDP by almost $1 trillion, and result in exciting new and different inventions.

Please join this distinguished panel to learn more about the patent gaps and how we can work together to close them. The event will take place on Wednesday, 26 January at 12pm ET / 9am PT.

Register here.

The Center for Intellectual Property x Innovation Policy (C-IP²) at George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School invites applications for a non-resident fellowship program designed to develop rigorous scholarship on intellectual property (IP), creativity, and innovation law and policy. The Thomas Edison Innovation Law and Policy Fellowship promotes excellent academic research about IP and related rights in the innovative and creative communities. The program consists of a series of three (3) invitation-only roundtables over the course of a year, which fellows are required to attend. Over the course of these meetings, Edison Fellows work under the guidance of distinguished senior commentators, and with each other, to turn paper ideas into polished manuscripts publishable in law reviews or other academic journals.

Deadline for submissions: 24 November 2021, 05pm EST.

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Techinvention, a member of the Innovation Council, has been nominated for the SME Excellence Awards by the Indian Chamber of SMEs. The awards were initiated to recognise SMEs for their exceptional contribution and achievements in business and industry.

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This series of virtual events will take a look at the IP gender gap in the Americas region. Political leaders, heads of IP offices, economists, and scholars will discuss how best to attract underrepresented groups to use the patent system, what data needs to be collected in order to understand the gap, and how to interpret new and existing data in order to develop solutions that will help close the gap.

The High-Level Policy panel will take place on 13 October, 5:30-6:30pm CET // 11:30am-12:30pm EDT // 8:30-9:30am PDT.

The IP Economist panel will take place on 14 October, 5-7pm CET // 11am-1pm EDT // 8-10am PDT.

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Diversity gaps in the U.S. patent system persist, in part, because of an absence of data on patent applicants. This lack of transparency has meant that patent holders are predominantly white, male and wealthy.

A recent study found that women, especially African-American and Latina women, obtain patents at significantly lower rates than men; people of color get approved for patents less often than white people; and individuals from lower-income families are less likely to acquire a patent than those who grew up in affluent families.

“Throughout history, women and underrepresented minorities have not been able to participate fully in each stage of the innovation process,” Lisa Cook, a professor of economics and international relations at Michigan State University. 

The inclusion of these underrepresented groups would evidently also have a positive impact on the economy and would increase U.S. GDP by 2.7% per capita, and by roughly $1 trillion annually. The economic activity from patents is estimated to be over $8 trillion, more than one-third of U.S gross domestic product. 

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The economist at Harvard University in Cambridge, Rembrand Koning, reasoned that the relative scarcity of women’s health products on the market is due to a scarcity of women inventing them. A study published in June confirms this theory: few biotechnology patents are owned by women, and female inventors are significantly more likely than are male ones to patent health products for women.

Teams made up of all women, were 35% more likely than all-male teams to invent technologies relating to women’s health. But teams made up of all women or all men were equally likely to patent technologies for men’s health. If women and men had produced an equal number of patents since 1976, the researchers estimated, there would be 6,500 more female-focused inventions today. 

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Many women in the history of Iran and especially in the last century have been influential in various social, cultural, political, and economic fields of the country and have worked for the progress of the country, Zahra Behrooz, head of Women’s Affairs Department of Tehran Municipality, stated. The proportion of female inventors to male inventors in Iran is significantly higher than the global average and even higher than the leading countries in the field of patents.

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Innovation Council brings together diverse innovators to share their experiences with policymakers and other stakeholders. TechInvention Lifecare PvT Ltd, was founded in 2016 with the objective of increasing the supply of Vaccines and Bio-Therapeutics for low and middle-income countries (LMICs), is an Innovation Council member based in India. Here, in his own words, Syed Ahmed, the company’s CEO, shares insights about his company’s activities, challenges, and successes in recent years.

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