07/03/2022
The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) reported that the number of Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) international applications with at least one female inventor was 33.3% in 2021, although only 16.5% of all inventors were women. Whilst the number of female inventors has been steadily increasing over the last decade, WIPO calculates that it will be 2058 until gender parity in PCT applications is achieved. In addition, it is important to bear in mind that there is also disparity at other stages of patent procurement, with evidence to suggest that following submission of a patent application, female inventors are more likely to have their application rejected than their male counterparts.
Some technology fields are closing the patent application gender gap more quickly than others. Life sciences has the best female representation with nearly 60% of PCT applications in the fields of biotechnology, organic fine chemistry and pharmaceuticals having at least one female inventor. This is approximately four-fold higher than patent applications relating to mechanical elements.
Why is there such a big discrepancy between different technologies? It is not surprising that subject areas with higher rates of both female employment and female graduate students correspond to the fields with better gender equality in IP rights. In the US in 2020, women were awarded 71.4% of doctoral degrees in health and medical sciences compared to 35.0% in physical and earth sciences and only 25.8% in mathematics and computer sciences. A similar imbalance is seen in the UK and EU.
Women in life sciences also have an increasing number of role models in the patenting sphere. For example, some of the highly lucrative CRISPR-Cas9 patents are associated with the collaboration between female scientists Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna.
Progress has been made in the life sciences with a 14% increase in the proportion of patents with at least one female inventor since the turn of the millennium. However, it would be wrong to think that the gender gap in patents is no longer an issue. Men far outnumber women as patent holders in life sciences. This is thought to be due to barriers in career progression following postgraduate studies. Proportionally fewer women with PhDs go into research than men. It has also been reported that the number of females using the patent system is low compared with those females who publish scientific papers each year.
A recent report based on US biomedical patents filed between 1976 and 2010 found that all-female inventor teams are more likely to patent health products for women than all-male teams. Female inventors are more likely to address conditions like breast cancer and postpartum preeclampsia, and also diseases that disproportionately affect women, such as fibromyalgia and lupus. Consequently, the inventor gender gap is believed to be partially responsible for a relative lack of female-focused inventions.
The opportunity to invent has a strong influence on what actually gets invented. Closing the gender gap is therefore not only important to resolve inequalities in who invents but to address inequalities in who benefits from the resultant innovation.
This article is for general information only. Its content is not a statement of the law on any subject and does not constitute advice. Please contact Reddie & Grose LLP for advice before taking any action in reliance on it.
