Women account for nearly one third of the 224,000 applications for international patent recognition in 2017, which is significantly higher than in previous years, announced the UN’s World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). In the past decade, patents designed by women made up 23 percent of the total.
The UN welcomed the significant progress in the share of women among inventors, but also warned that the gender gap remains large. WIPO’s Director General Francis Gurry praised in a statement the “innovative, creative achievements of women around the world.” He also emphasized that “international patent application requests are an important measure for assessing innovative activities in the modern global economy and that full parity between women and men in this field must be achieved.”
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WIPO data shows that South Korea is the best when it comes to gender equality in innovation, as there the ratio is ‘fifty-fifty’. China follows, where women filed 48 percent of patents. In the leading country for patent applications, the United States, women sign 33 percent of applications.
The share of women is highest in the field of biotechnology patents (58 percent), followed by pharmaceuticals and chemistry. The lowest is in mechanics, with only 14 percent.
