Schuster W Michael, Goodman Jordana
University of Georgia, Terry College of Business, Athens, USA.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago-Kent College of Law, Chicago, USA.
Sci Rep. 2025 Jan 15;15(1):2070. doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-80796-2.
There are pervasive gender gaps throughout the patent process. Here, we add to the literature by providing an in-depth analysis of gendered outcomes across each stage of patent prosecution. We show that female inventors are more likely to face rejection, experience unsuccessful appeals, and exhibit lower responsiveness to rejections than male counterparts. Not only are women less likely to patent their invention, but each stage of examination individually contributes to a lower aggregate grant rate for female inventors. Our research finds that, unlike small and large entity industry equivalents, university-filed patent applications demonstrate increased gender parity in allowance rates and continued prosecution after rejection. Moreover, small entities-patent applicants with typically smaller budgets-are either more than or equally likely to exhibit gender parity when compared to larger firms. We anticipate this study to be a starting point for a more sophisticated discussion around closing gender gaps in patenting and STEM.
在整个专利流程中，存在着普遍的性别差距。在此，我们通过对专利申请各阶段的性别化结果进行深入分析，为相关文献增添了内容。我们发现，与男性同行相比，女性发明家更有可能面临驳回、上诉失败，并且对驳回的回应率较低。女性不仅不太可能为其发明申请专利，而且审查的每个阶段都单独导致女性发明家的总体授权率较低。我们的研究发现，与小型和大型实体行业的同类情况不同，大学提交的专利申请在授权率和驳回后的继续审查方面显示出更高的性别平等。此外，与大公司相比，预算通常较小的小型实体专利申请人表现出性别平等的可能性要么更高，要么相同。我们预计这项研究将成为围绕缩小专利和STEM领域性别差距展开更深入讨论的起点。
