Mentorship holds a significant place in the legal profession. Whether it’s a voracious trial lawyer or an adroit patent prosecutor, one can almost guarantee that they have had one or more mentors guiding them, fostering their skills, and providing them with the kind of knowledge that only experience can bring. This principle extends to inventors as well, who can greatly amplify their chances of successfully patenting their innovations with exposure to other inventors, as well as intellectual property (IP) lawyers.
Upon close analysis, it has been found that the impact of mentorship and exposure to the right set of people and environment has had a significant effect on demographics that have been historically underrepresented among patent owners, specifically women. Women constitute merely 13% of U.S. patent owners, in spite of their enormous strides in academic pursuits and participation in a wide range of technological initiatives. According to estimates by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the gender patent gap in North America is set to close only by the year 2055, and in Europe, it is projected to take until 2088 to achieve gender patent parity.
Interestingly, despite the seemingly overwhelming odds, there are reasons to remain hopeful. For instance, there has been a noticeable increase in the geographical distribution of U.S.-based female inventors over the years. This trend can be seen in the fact that from 1990-2019, an additional 411 counties had women patent holders, marking a 32% increase. This increase was largely driven by a greater distribution of women inventors in research and technology hubs, along with areas where large research universities offset relatively smaller population sizes.
While it may seem intuitive that female Ph.D. students should enjoy advantages when it comes to becoming named inventors on patented technologies, reality suggests otherwise. A recent paper published by MIT highlights the persisting gender gap, stating that “female STEM doctoral students are less likely to become new inventors compared to their male counterparts during the years of their training”.
The researchers attempting to understand this phenomenon examined the impact of faculty advisors, discovering that students with advisors experienced in securing patents were much more likely to become inventors themselves. However, it was also found that “female Ph.D. candidates have a 21 percent lower likelihood of being matched with advisors who are top inventors than male Ph.D. candidates”.
Such insights indicate the need for identifying correctional measures, encouraging female students to be proactive about obtaining inventor credit, and ensuring that the system of creating inventors is representative of the diversity of the general population.
The author of this partiuclar analysis is Gaston Kroub, the founding partner of Kroub, Silbersher & Kolmykov PLLC and Markman Advisors LLC. He can be contacted at gkroub@kskiplaw.com or be followed on Twitter at @gkroub.
The analysis for this article has been adopted from the original article: “Inventing Inventors“, first published on Above the Law.