I’ve written before about the lack of representation for women in the entrepreneurial ranks, but this is also evident across innovation more broadly. For instance, in 2010 it was estimated that just over 15% of all patents had at least one female inventor. While this gap has narrowed since then, at the current rate, it would take until nearly the end of the century for parity to be reached.
This difference is not generally speaking one that’s driven by differences in things like occupation or gender, as the gender gap in patents is actually greater than that in both STEM education and careers. For instance, whereas women make up just under 30% of the total scientific and technical workforce, they are only 12% of inventors who have been granted patents. This is despite, obviously, making up over half of the overall workforce.
Handling rejection
A recent study from Berkeley-Haas suggests that how the sexes handle rejection may play a part in this disparity. The researchers evaluate around a million patent applications in the United States between 2001 and 2012 to evaluate both the prosecution and the outcomes of each application.
They utilize the variation in the likelihood that the patent examiner will reject any given application and find that early rejections are more likely to deter female applicants than male applicants.
“We identify that gender differentials in responses to rejection contribute significantly to differential outcomes in patenting for women,” the researchers explain. “Female inventors who receive rejections early in the application process are less likely to submit amendments in response to examiner feedback, and this results in the abandonment of their applications.”
Indeed, they believe that this preponderance to quit after an early rejection is so strong that it accounts for around half of the gender gap in patent receipt. What’s more, the gender gap in responsiveness to rejection was found to widen yet further as the presence of women on teams increased. This suggests that the level of female representation has a significant impact on how teams respond to rejection.
Sticking it out
The researchers then examined various approaches that could help to change matters. They find that using a lawyer to prosecute a patent application significantly increases the chances of following up after a rejection and submitting an amendment.
“However, there is no consistent effect of using a lawyer on the gender differential in response to rejection, which suggests that having the guidance of a lawyer and the information that comes along with patent counsel does not remedy the problem we identify,” they continue.
A similar boost emerges when the patent rights are assigned to a firm after the outcome. Again, there was a particular increase in female inventors, with the researchers arguing that the support of a firm helps to shrink the gap between male and female inventors when it comes to persisting with the application after initial rejection.
“These findings provide suggestive evidence that the provision of resources and potentially distancing inventors from the decision of whether or not to continue an application can play a key role in increasing women’s success in the patent application process,” the researchers explain.
Helping female inventors continue with their work in the face of an early rejection is obviously important in helping to reduce the gender gap in innovation. The research provides some useful pointers to how this might be achieved.
“Women’s differential rates of patent receipt can contribute to the gender gap in access to financial resources as well as a disparity in opportunities for women to commercialize their inventions,” the authors conclude.
