Research and analysis

Gender profiles in UK patenting: An analysis of female inventorship

A statistical analysis of the difference in the proportion of Inventors between the genders.

• From: Intellectual Property Office
• Published: 18 April 2016

Documents

Gender profiles in UK patenting: An analysis of female inventorship

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Gender profiles in UK patenting: infographic

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Details

The government is keen to inspire girls and women to study and build careers in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths) industries. For many years the IPO has been asked about the number of female inventors but until now automated gender inference from inventor names has not been possible.

This study by the IPO Informatics Team reveals some interesting results whilst providing quantitative data to back up the anecdotal evidence within the IP industry about the representation of female inventors.

Although absolute numbers remain low, the number of female inventors on UK patent applications has more than doubled in the last 30 years and the proportion of UK patent applications involving a female inventor has more than tripled.

Published 18 April 2016