Research a few years ago suggested that we tend to perceive men as being more innovative than women, even though the reality is often very different. Sadly, this bias seems to play out when we look at things like the number of female entrepreneurs. Research from Deakin University suggests that women are also under-represented when it comes to securing patents.
“We examine 309,544 patent applications filed with IP Australia (the majority from international applicants) across a 15-year period (2001–15) and attribute a gender to 941,516 inventor names,” the researchers explain. “Only 23.6% of patent applications in this dataset include at least 1 female inventor.”
Increasing the odds
That’s not to say that women aren’t applying for patents. Indeed, the researchers highlight that the number of patent applications by female inventors has risen considerably over the last 20 years, even though the absolute number is still lower than for men. What is less clear is whether those applications have been successful or not.
The researchers cite data from the US Patent and Trademark Office, which suggests that inventors with female-sounding names appear to have a lower success rate than those with male-sounding names. What’s more, this is irrespective of the discipline the patents are being applied in, and indeed despite evidence suggesting that patents from female inventors are every bit as good as those from male inventors.
The situation is somewhat different in Australia, as while most patents filed at the US Patent and Trademark Office are from US residents, the majority of patents filed in Australia are from non-residents. Despite this difference, the gender gap persisted, with 90% of applications having at least one male inventor, and just 24% having at least one female inventor.
What’s more, female inventors also had a marginally lower success rate than their male peers, with their prospects only really increasing when they added men to their application. By contrast, adding a woman to the application seemed to have no impact.
A raw deal
The researchers then examined possible reasons why this might be. They found that 60% of female inventors operated in four of the 35 scientific categories used in patent applications, with all of these in the life sciences. Interestingly, in three of these fields, the average success rate of applications was lower, regardless of the gender of the applicant.
Even though women were trying to register patents in more challenging fields, however, there was still a statistically relevant gap in both the number of applications and their success.
This matters, not least as the analysis found that the patents by female inventors were more likely to focus on female issues, and especially female diseases. Patents can also significantly help with career progression, which is also important given the widespread challenges women face in progressing in STEM careers.
The first step in fixing a problem is acknowledging it exists. The researchers hope that their research starts a conversation that prompts people to reflect on our own biases.
