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WIPO |
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Date: Sept. 7, 1998. |
WORLD INTELECTUAL PROPERTY
ORGANIZATION
GENEVE
WOMEN INVENT
An Exhibition on Women Inventors organized by WIPO at its headquarters
(Geneva, Switzerland, September 8, 199S to March 31, 1999)
Background Document on Statistical Data Provided by Industrial Property
Offices of Member States
By Circular letter No. 6032/45.424 of April 20, 1998, the Secretariat invited the
industrial property offices of member States to submit any relevant material which could
serve as background information or be displayed at the exhibition on women inventors to
open on September 8, 1998.
Many industrial property offices responded generously to this letter by sending a
variety of information and interesting material.
A large number of offices sent information on individual women inventors in their
countries (e.g., curriculum vitaes, photographs, patent documents and sometimes samples of
an invention). This kind of material, in great part, has been integrated into the exhibit
displays.
Some offices submitted statistical data. This information has been compiled in Annex I
and, in most cases, maintained in the original format and language submitted by each
office.
It is not possible, for purposes of this exhibit, to analyze this statistical data in
any detail or to reach any generalized conclusions based on this information.
In the first place, information about women inventors is frequently incomplete and
lacks the uniformity which would allow for scientific comparisons.
For example, some of the statistical data reported
refer to women "inventors," other data to women "applicants;" in some
cases, it is not clear whether the information refers to the gender of the inventor or of
the applicant.'
In this respect, it should be noted that, under the laws of most countries, the
inventor and the applicant may not necessarily be one and the same person, although, if
the inventor is not the applicant, he or she has the right to be named as such in the
patent document, as required by Article 4ter of the Paris Convention for the
Protection of Industrial Property.
Furthermore, in some cases, it is not clear
whether women inventors are reported only whenthey qualify as a "sole" inventor,
or if they are also accounted for when,in the capacity of joint inventor, they form part
of a group of inventors (together with men) credited with an invention.
There are, in addition, other, fundamental problems which are encountered, as a general
rule, whenever an attempt is made to compile statistical data about women inventors.
It is frequently difficult, sometimes impossible, to search patent documents on the
basis of the gender of the inventor. Whereas, in some countries, requiring an indication
of the gender of the inventor on a patent application is optional, in other countries, it
is not required, and, in some, it may even be considered illegal. Therefore, in most
cases, gender must be deduced from the first name of the inventor, which is not always
evident and which makes a computerized search difficult.‘
A few patent offices have nevertheless tried to compile some relatively comprehensive,
although usually non-exhaustive or approximative data about women inventors in their
respective countries. References to a few examples are listed in Annex II. Some of that
information forms part of the exhibition.
All of the factors described above make it difficult to give any precise
interpretation, or to draw any significant conclusions on the basis of statistical data
currently available. Nevertheless, the information reported by the various industrial
property offices, as well as the background research, interviews and other evaluations
carried out in the preparation of the material for the exhibition, would suggest the
following.
Depending on the particular country, which can vary enormously from region to region,
and even within a region, women seem to represent, generally, anywhere from one to seven
percent of the total number of inventors credited with a patented invention; in a few
cases, this percentage may be as high as 10% to 12%. These modest figures, however, seem
to be growing, both in actual and proportional numbers. Moreover, another trend can be
perceived: women are inventing in ever-increasingly more varied and wider fields.
Historically, it would seem that women, as a group, start inventing in areas mainly
related to child, home and beauty care. At a second stage, women seem to advance into
practical or "nurturing" kinds of inventions, for use outside of the
"home," with a variety of mechanical and safety-oriented inventions and
inventions in the health and medical fields. Finally, women seem to strike out into a
variety of areas which may not be associated with traditional stereotypes, such as
chemistry and heavy industry as well as high-technology fields. For example, women seem to
be successful in large numbers as researchers and inventors in biotechnology, including
genetic engineering.
Reproduced with exclusive
permission from WIPO
Reproducido con permiso exclusivo de OMPI
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