Give to Gain: Unlocking the Full Potential of Women and IP
International Women’s Day has been celebrated for 115 years. This year’s theme is Give to Gain – a strong call to action for all of us. While there has been incredible progress on the road to equal opportunities, there is still a lot of work to do.
The European Patent Office (EPO) has just released a new report, “Advancing women in STEM” covering a breadth of data regarding each stage of the “leaky pipeline” that still haunts women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. The report discusses the role of women in Intellectual Property (IP) from various perspectives – covering women inventors as well as women in IP professions – while highlighting geographical and disciplinary differences. You can read the full report here: https://link.epo.org/web/publications/studies/en-advancing-women-in-stem.pdf
The numbers speak for themselves: women inventors still represent only about 13.8% of inventors at the EPO, despite making up roughly 21-22% of STEM roles. On a brighter note, about 29% of European Patent Attorneys are women (hey, we must be doing something right!). You can find more details about some of these numbers here: https://information.patentepi.org/issue-1-2024/women-and-ip.html. While the numbers are slowly rising, there are clearly still unseen barriers limiting the potential of women in these roles, particularly in leadership positions and among startup founders. We are missing out on contributions and innovation potential that could lead to greater prosperity for everyone.
In a recent episode of the Insight epi podcast, Marc Nevant and I sat down with Victor Arribas Martinez, Stream Leader for Diversity and Transformation, EPO Observatory on Patents and Technology, and one of the authors of the latest report. We discussed the findings, compared them with what the epi DEI Committee (formerly the D&I Working Group) chaired by Marc has uncovered, and explored what each of us can “give” to “gain” better opportunities and innovation outputs by supporting women throughout their professional journeys. You can listen to the podcast here:
https://www.epi-learning.org/course/view.php?id=129.
We invite other epi members to share their thoughts on how we can #GivetoGain. Please share your views in the comments, write to the epi DEI Committee, or join the conversation on LinkedIn!
Starting the conversation is the first step toward meaningful impact. Tell us: what does Give to Gain mean to you?
