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Recent Research: University Culture, IP Policy, TTOs Play Vital Role Increasing Patenting Activity by Female Academics

July 16, 2015

Over the past 40 years, the number of women across the globe filing patents has risen fastest within academia compared to all other sectors of the innovation economy, according to a new study from researchers at Indiana University (IU). The researchers found that the overall percentage of patents with women's names attached rose from an average of 2 percent to 3 percent across all areas in 1976 to 18 percent in 2013 for female academics. In comparison, the overall percentage of patents with women's names attached grew to 10 percent in industry and 12 percent for individuals. The study tracked female patent filers across 185 countries, all of whom filed their patents with the U.S. patent office.

These findings surprised the study’s primary author, Cassidy Sugimoto, and her collaborators. They assumed the growth would be slower in academic because patenting is still considered “optional” in terms of promotion. However, the authors believe that the passage of the Bayh-Dole Act in 1980 may have played an important role in this growth of patenting by all academics. Since Bayh-Dole transferred intellectual property revenue based on federally funded research discoveries from government to universities, academia has become a more significant source of patents.

The report, however, highlights some areas where patent filing among women has room to improve including:

  • In all sectors of the economy, patent filing by women did not come close to reflecting women’s current representation in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM);
  • The patent impact score assigned to patents with the names of women – the number of times the patent was cited in other filings – was much lower compared to patents with male names; and,
  • The proportional rate of patents with women's names was highest in Eastern Europe, Asia and several African countries.

Finally, the study noted that patents from women frequently included contributors from a wider variety of fields. This suggests that women inventors were more collaborative and multidisciplinary than their male peers. The authors conclude that university technology transfer offices (TTOs) play an important role in setting policies and building a collaborative university culture that encourage female academics to engage in innovation and patenting.

Another recent study from the University of Bologna in Italy may confirm the findings of the IU study.  In the study, researchers examined the factors that encourage women to participate in patenting and the commercialization of patented research to address the existing gender gap. The authors concluded that the institutional ownership arrangements have a positive effect on the female involvement in patenting at Italian research universities from 1996 to 2007. They also found that TTOs and university IP policy impact also play a vital role in addressing the gender gap in productivity and in commercial engagement within academia.

These two studies indicate that university structures, entities, and mechanisms including TTOs and IP policies can play a vital role in reducing the gender gap in the patenting and commercialization of academic discoveries in countries across the world. The IU study also highlights the importance of supporting a culture of collaboration across disciplines at research universities to achieve more patenting – especially among female academics. Now that they have identified the vital comments needed to support patenting by females, there are several questions that need to be answered:

  • How do you build a culture of collaboration between academic disciplines at a university?
  • What are some of the most effective strategies for TT and IP policy to engage female academics?
  • What can universities do better to reduce the gender gap at a faster rate?
inclusion, recent research, intellectual property, tech transfer