Guest Post by Suzanne Harrison: Diversity Pledge: Boosting Innovation and Competitiveness

Guest post by Suzanne Harrison, Chair of the Patent Public Advisory Committee (PPAC) at the USPTO.

This post is part of a series by the Diversity Pilots Initiative, which advances inclusive innovation through rigorous research. The first blog in the series is here, and resources from the first conference of the initiative are available here.

In July 2021, the USIPA hosted a DEI in innovation conference and launched The Diversity Pledge, alongside 30 founding Pledgee companies who agreed to increase the participation of under-represented inventors (URIs) in their own firms.  Currently, over 50 technology companies have committed to the Diversity Pledge from both the US and Europe across a variety of different industries as well as over 25 law firms and consulting firms as pledge supporters. On August 1st, we held the second conference on Increasing Diversity in the Innovation Ecosystem with the USPTO and showcased what companies, law firms, universities, and the USPTO are doing in their respective organizations to increase DEI within inventorship, innovation, and the IP profession. 

When we created the Diversity Pledge, our hope was to create more transparency in innovation and inventorship inclusivity, by creating a standard metric for companies to report on their DEI reports.  What we have come to realize however, is that increasing diversity and inclusivity in innovation is not only an equal-opportunity social imperative, it is a common sense means to improve R&D efficiency and corporate ROI, and it is also a necessity for maintaining and increasing national competitiveness. Because we can’t afford to leave our most talented people on the sidelines, the goal must be actionable, not performative.

Guest Post by Professors Aneja, Subramani, and Reshef: Why Do Women Face Challenges in the Patent Process?

Guest post by Abhay Aneja, Assistant Professor of Law, University of California, Berkeley, Diversity Pilots Initiative Researcher, Gauri Subramani, Assistant Professor in the Department of Management, College of Business, Lehigh University and Diversity Pilots Initiative Researcher, and Oren Reshef, Assistant Professor of Strategy, Washington University in St. Louis

This post is part of a series by the Diversity Pilots Initiative, which advances inclusive innovation through rigorous research. The first blog in the series is here, and resources from the first conference of the initiative are available here.

About 86% of all patent applications are submitted by men or all-male teams. This underrepresentation of women gets worse as the patent approval process runs its course. In other words, patent applications from women and teams with higher female representation are less likely to convert into granted patents. Why is this happening?

An essential feature of the patent process is that it is highly iterative, so rejection occurs often, as the figure below of the evaluative trajectory of patent applications shows.  While over 80% of applications face rejection, it is crucial to note that rejection does not necessarily indicate the impossibility of moving forward with that invention. Applicants can respond to rejections and continue in the patent process. However, research indicates that female patent applicants are less likely to follow up after rejection, contributing significantly to the lower conversion rate of applications to granted patents.