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15 November 2016Patents

No gender balance in patent applications before 2080: WIPO report

A gender balance in Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) applications may not be achieved until 2080.

This is the finding of a report by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), “Economic research working paper no. 33, identifying the gender of PCT inventors”, which was published today, November 15.

The report found that the participation of women in PCT applications has improved over time, but it is still far from a balanced distribution.

According to the study, “very few” PCT applications have only women listed as inventors (4.3%), but the proportion has almost doubled since 1995.

PCT applications with at least one woman inventor (those with women only inventors and with both men and women) have increased from 17% to 29% in the same period.

The study said that women are less likely to file patents without the opposite gender than men.

Korea and China were found to have a higher gender balance in international patenting, as 50% of all international applications included female inventors between 2011 and 2015.

However, Italy, Germany, South Africa and Japan had the greatest gender gap in the listed origins. Less than one fifth of all international patent applications included women.

The report concluded that “the main encouraging message of our study is that gender participation in the intellectual property system is getting better. Virtually all indicators related to gender balance in the PCT system show some degree of progress from 1995 to 2015”.

WIPO added that the proportion of women inventors relative to men “remains far from balanced”.

The organisation said: “Assuming that the current progression rates were maintained, we would observe gender balance not before 2080.”

Francis Gurry, WIPO director general, said: “These new, global data give us a baseline for understanding the role of gender in the filing of international patent applications, which is one metric used in measuring a country’s innovative capacity.

“These data prove that a gender gap exists and it needs to be addressed,” he added.

The UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO) also published a report, called “Gender profiles in worldwide patenting”, today. The report looked at patent analysis undertaken in terms of gender balance.

The IPO report studied the sub-classes filed by male and female inventors. It said that there are clear and “somewhat gender stereotypical” differences between the top and bottom international patent classification (IPC) subclasses.

For example, 79% of IPC subclasses related to beer, wine and spirits were filed by male inventors and 21% by female inventors.

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