female inventors
2021 Innovators Under 35
In the “35 Innovators Under 35” competition, the MIT Technology Review nominates more than 500 people every year and will showcase these global winners in their July/August issue and online. From this group, the Technology Review’s editors select the most promising 100 competitors to advance to the semi-finalist round, and the work of these top 100 contestants is then evaluated by a panel of judges with expertise in areas such as artificial intelligence, biotechnology, software, energy, and materials. Using the insights from these rankings, the editors select the final list of 35.
Read the full story and scroll through the list of inventors.
Trailblazing Women Engineers Inspire the Next Generation
In the United States, engineering remains one of the undergraduate majors with the smallest percentage of women. The percentage of women engineers in the workplace is even smaller. Inspire! is a collection of three educational videos, with an accompanying discussion guide, that will empower middle school and early high school girls to overcome obstacles facing girls and women in STEM fields, such as a lack of confidence and discouragement from others.
Closing the Gender Gap in IP – Exploring Multi-stakeholder initiatives
Holly Fechner from Invent together is speaking in a sharing session on “Exploring Multi-stakeholder Initiatives that Encourage Women to Participate in, and Contribute to, the Innovation Ecosystem” organized by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) on 07 July.
25 inspiring stories of Latin American women
Given the importance of science and technology for advancing the SDGs – but against a backdrop of declining interest in scientific careers among youth, and a persistent gender gap in the STEM field – 3M has published the stories of 25 successful women in science in Latin America. The stories, curated from more than 1000 applications, are inspiring individual tales. They also highlight the broader positive impact these women have had on their societies. Kudos to 3M for shining a spotlight on the achievements of these impressive scientists.
Gender Profiles in UK Patenting: An analysis of female inventorship
This analysis by the UKIPO shows that, in the 1980s, women represented less than 4% of inventors on GB patent applications, but that this has steadily risen to over 8% in recent years. Although absolute numbers remain relatively low, the last 10 years have seen a 16% increase in the proportion of female inventors. The overall proportion of patents involving a female inventor (either working alone or as part of a team) has more than tripled, from 4% in 1980 to over 12% in 2015; at the same time, the last 10 years have seen the proportion of individual female inventors’ plateau at around 3.75%. The number of all-female teams has increased fivefold since 1980, but the absolute numbers are still very low, with only 0.33% of patents coming from all-female teams in 2015. Although historical analysis reveals ever-increasing levels of female patenting, the growth rate is slow and the absolute numbers are still very low. The world of patenting remains male-dominated, and, even in 2015, there is a clear gender disparity: 88% of all GB patent applications come from male individuals or all-male teams, and almost 96% teams that submit applications include at least one man.
2017 Women’s Participation in Patenting: An Analysis of PCT Applications Originating in Canada
This report from 2017, by the Canadian Intellectual Property Office, examines international patent applications filed under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), in order to determine the share of inventors who are women and the share of PCT applications with at least one woman inventor. The report studies PCT applications by Canadian applicants, and finds that Canada has seen little change in the share of inventors who are women in the last 15 years, even as the world share continues to grow.
Identifying the gender of PCT inventors
This paper, by Gema Lax Martinez, Julio Raffo and Kaori Saito, analyzes the gender of inventors in international patent applications. The authors compile a worldwide gender-name dictionary, which includes 6.2 million names for 182 different countries, which they use to discern the gender of PCT inventors. The results of the researchers suggest that there is a gender imbalance in PCT applications, but that the proportion of women inventors is improving over time. They also find that the rates of women’s participation differ substantially across countries, technological fields and sectors.
Challenges for Women Inventors and Innovators in Using the IP System
Jozefina Cutura explains that, despite marked improvements in gender equality, gender gaps persist in patenting and in women’s ability to commercialize their creative and innovative output. Under its Policy on Gender Equality, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) must integrate a gender perspective into its policies and programs. Given the gender disparities in patenting, WIPO is undertaking a project on increasing the role of women in innovation and entrepreneurship, which aims, in particular, to encourage women in developing countries to use the intellectual property (IP) system.
Gender mainstreaming enhances women’s representation in inventions
In her article for the International Women’s Day 2021, Carolina Torres-Sarmiento pays tribute to female inventors and their contribution to social developments, and draws attention to the glass ceilings they had to break on their way to success. Gender gaps in science and technology are, unfortunately, still very present. Data extracted from patent offices in the US and the UK, as well as the ‘She figures (2018)’ EU report, show the necessity of more equal representation in the patent system. Multiple actions can be considered, such as enhancing women’s representation in all fields of science and technology, reducing the gender gap in STEM education, encouraging female recognition in patent applications, increasing the involvement of women in business and innovation processes, and promoting awareness to prevent gender bias in emerging technologies.