Tech GCs ask: Is the patent profession in decline?
A report produced on behalf of counsel from Google, Meta, Amazon, Microsoft and Disney, suggests that the patent field is facing a crisis due to a lack of new, diverse entrants.
Patent law is one of the least diverse practices in legal services. In the US, the American Bar Association says that women make up just 22% of registered attorneys and agents in the US Patent and Trademark office (USPTO).
The situation is longstanding. Since 1950, fewer than 6% of USPTO registrants have been racially diverse.
Further, there are currently more patent attorneys and agents named ‘Michael’ in the US than there are racially diverse women.
A profession in decline
Three years ago, a community of general counsels from major technology and entertainment companies came together to brainstorm ways to increase diversity and inclusion (D&I) within the IP profession, giving rise to the organisation ‘Advancing Diversity Across Patent Teams’ (ADAPT)
ADAPT’s data report aims to address the data deficit in charting diversity progress in the patent industry.
Google, Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, Disney and other ADAPT founding members collaborated with Baker McKenzie’s Machine Learning Initiative BakerML, and law firm Harrity & Harrity, on an artificial intelligence (AI) focused study analysing factors affecting women’s participation in the profession.
The report is ADAPT’s first data initiative and aims to “tell the story of the profession, identify new insights especially through the lens of inclusion and representation and create a framework to measure the impact of DEI programmes”.
“Data can tell the story of innovation, shape the conversation and drive action towards a more inclusive patent and legal profession.” Steve Gong, head of data science, PMO and Operations, Google
Strikingly, the report identifies a “profession in decline’, pointing out that since 2006, the patent bar has been rapidly ageing with “a continuous decline in the young practitioner population”, as well as mid-career practitioners (five to 20 years experience) and an increase in participation of late career practitioners (20+ years experience).
“This trend, if not mitigated, shows the troubling pipeline and upcoming shortage,” warns the report.
The report unveils a new industry dataset fusing historic USPTO patent practitioner statistics with industry data. The group leveraged machine learning and generative AI techniques to study the career progression of roughly 25,000 US patent agents and attorneys.
Reflecting on the report, Steve Gong, head of data science, PMO and Operations, Google Patents, said: “Data can tell the story of innovation, shape the conversation and drive action towards a more inclusive patent and legal profession.
“Our profession has a duty to meaningfully represent experiences and viewpoints as diverse as the society in which we live. This is especially true for IP professionals who are at the forefront of working with innovators and inventors.
“ADAPT aims to leverage technology to scale our collective impact, to power accessibility of information and form meaningful connections for the entire professional pipeline. We are very excited with the partnership with Baker McKenzie to advance diversity across the profession.”
Also commenting, BakerML founder Danielle Benecke said: “An important part of Baker McKenzie's vision in bringing machine learning into our firm is to scale our social impact efforts.
"We are thrilled to join forces with ADAPT and combine our legal expertise with data science to analyse and find solutions to complex social challenges.”
Leadership and barriers
The report highlights that the “long list of requirements to become a patent professional and the existing issues in STEM education have resulted in decreased women and underrepresented minority representation”.
The Towards Leadership section reviews women’s educational profile as they progress as patent practitioners. Women practitioners were found to have generally studied sciences, with 38% of women having a sciences degree compared to 18% with an engineering degree. The report notes that science degrees normally require higher educational levels than engineering degrees, presenting further barriers to a career in IP.
And while the report found that more than half of women practitioners with a PhD degree became patent agents, an advanced degree in STEM (Masters of PhD) did not increase the likelihood of becoming a patent attorney. Looking at leadership roles, just under 30% of the women surveyed went on to become law firm partners (but a masters degree did not increase the likelihood of a woman attaining partnership status).
Looking forward, ADAPT is actively working on a report looking at ethnicity data in the patent profession.
Acknowledging the inherent challenges of this research, the report notes: “Ethnicity analysis is significantly more complex than gender analysis and different models may yield different results.”
ADAPT has tested and fine-tuned multiple models and is partnering with other organisations and government entities with the aim of publishing new findings later this year.
You can learn more about ADAPT’s data initiatives at data@adapt.legal.
Did you enjoy reading this story? Sign up to our free daily newsletters and get stories sent like this straight to your inbox
