Who do we invent for? Patents by women focus more on women’s health, but few women get to invent

Koning, R. (Rembrand); Samila, S. (Sampsa); Ferguson, J.P. (John-Paul)

Authors:

Koning, R. (Rembrand)

Samila, S. (Sampsa)

Ferguson, J.P. (John-Paul)

Keywords:

Patents
Women inventors
US biomedical patents
Gender inequality
Inventor gender gap
Patentes
Mujeres inventoras
Desigualdad de género
Brecha de género en la invención
Patentes biomédicas en EEUU

Issue Date:

18-Jun-2021

Publisher:

American Association for the Advancement of Science

Publisher Version:

https://science.sciencemag.org/lookup/doi/10.1126/science.aba6990

ISSN:

1095-9203

Editorial note:

This is the author’s version of the work. It is posted here by permission of the AAAS for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Science on vol 372, issue 6548, 18 June 2021, DOI: doi/10.1126/science.aba6990

Citation:

Koning R; Samila S; Ferguson JP. "Who do we invent for? Patents by women focus more on women’s health, but few women get to invent". Science. 372 (6548), 2021-06-18:1345-1348.

Abstract

Women engage in less commercial patenting and invention than men, which may affect what is invented. Using text analysis of all US biomedical patents filed from 1976 through 2010, we find that patents with all-female inventor teams are 35% more likely to focus on women’s health than all-male teams. This effect holds over decades and across research areas. We also find that female researchers are more likely to discover female-focused ideas. These findings suggest that the inventor gender gap is partially responsible for thousands of missing female-focused inventions since 1976. More generally, our findings suggest that who benefits from innovation depends on who gets to invent.

URI:

https://hdl.handle.net/10171/60714

DOI:

10.1126/science.aba6990

Appears in Collections:

DA - IESE - Artículos de revista

Files in This Item: