Patents

In 2022, the European Patent Office (EPO) released this study providing evidence and insights on gender and patenting across Europe. The study reveals that just 13.2% of inventors in Europe are women. While the percentage has been steadily rising, there is clearly still work to be done to close the patenting gender gap.

This report presents data regarding gender and patenting across a wide range of countries, for different time periods, patent application profiles, and in different technology fields. The report indicates that the gender gap in relation to patenting could be harming technological progress, for European societies as a whole, given that the ingenuity of all people is not being fully leveraged. It recommends that policymakers enact policies and programs to close the gap and increase access to patents for female inventors.

Click here to read the report.

New research from WIPO about gender representation on PCT applications reveals that China has been able to grow the quantity of women inventors at nearly double the rate of the U.S. in recent decades, with 42% female inventors in China compared to 22% in the U.S. This Fortune article from Holly Fechner, the Executive Director of Invent Together, highlights the importance of utilizing the ideas and ingenuity of female inventors as well as those from other historically underrepresented groups, especially since global competition in technology is so intense and thus the stakes are high.

Click here to read the full article.

4iP have launched an ‘IP Stories’ podcast, looking at individuals’ unique perspectives on IP. 

We think they are great and definitely worth a listen!! 

Click here to listen to the podcasts 

Ahead of the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27), the EPO today launched a new Clean Energy platform designed to support researchers and decision-makers involved in the race for clean-energy technologies that contribute to the UN SDGs.

The platform provides an initial selection of some 60 ready-made smart patent information searches to help scientists, engineers and decision-makers find and build upon existing green tech solutions with greater ease.

Click here to read more.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office today released a new report, titled “Where are U.S. women patentees? Assessing three decades of growth.” The report examines women’s patenting by U.S. counties from 1990 through 2019. Over that 30-year period, women inventors patented in 411 new counties, an increase of 32% in the number of counties where women patent.

Artificial Intelligence is rapidly evolving to provide accurate information and solutions to problems. AI solutions can be extremely useful in many fields of endeavor.

There are various components and aspects of such systems. Currently, there is some uncertainty – especially with respect to patent protection – as to how intellectual property (IP) rights can be used to protect those components along with the outputs of AI systems.

Click here to read more.

On 26 November 2021 the new research report about the role that intellectual property played in the development, manufacturing, and global distribution of COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics was launched in Geneva. The report was co-authored by Innovation Council’s very own Jennifer Brant, and Prof. Mark Schultz.

The report is available here, along with a slideshow of the research project.

Innovation Council has created a running list of resources on various issues related to Gender and IP, based on work by Morgan Schreur. 

Click here to see the reading list.