Closing the Gender Gap in IP

May 21, 2021

On April 28, 2021, WIPO held the first of a series of sessions dedicated to women’s participation in the IP system. The series aim to:

Raise awareness about the importance of bridging the gender innovation gap and increase participation by women and girls in the IP ecosystem;
Promote the results of WIPO’s work in this area; and
Bring together stakeholders from around the world to share their experience and practices in addressing the barriers faced by women and girls in accessing the IP system.

The series opened with a session on “Mapping and Addressing Barriers”, moderated by Her Excellency Patricia Benedetti, Ambassador of El Salvador to the World Trade Organization and WIPO. The session looked at the existing barriers that prevent women from using the IP system in greater numbers and with greater benefits. It also explored opportunities to foster women’s participation in innovation, based on research findings and case studies from Chile and South Korea.

The session was opened by Mr. Hasan Kleib, Deputy Director General of the Regional and National Development Sector at WIPO, who stressed that, despite improvements, significant gaps still persist. He stated that everyone has equally to lose from them, and it is important to work collaboratively to enable greater participation by women in the IP ecosystem.

Panelists included:

**Ms. Jozefina Cutura**, Director of Gender and Social Inclusion at the Millennium Challenge Corporation, Washington D.C, and author of the literature review “Challenges for Women Inventors and Innovators in Using the Intellectual Property System” (Slides: )

**Ms. Jennifer Brant**, Director of Innovation Insights, Geneva, co-authors of the study “Policy Approaches to Close the Intellectual Property Gender Gap -Practices to Support Access to the Intellectual Property System for Female Innovators, Creators and Entrepreneurs” (Slides)

**Mr. Mark Schultz**, Goodyear Endowed Chair in Intellectual Property Law and Director of the IP & Technology Law Program, University of Akron School of Law, United States of America, co-authors of the study “Policy Approaches to Close the Intellectual Property Gender Gap -Practices to Support Access to the Intellectual Property System for Female Innovators, Creators and Entrepreneurs” (Slides )

**Ms. Loreto Bresky**, Director General of the National Institute of Industrial Property of Chile (INAPI), Santiago. (Slides )

**Ms. Insil Lee**, President of the Korean Women Inventors Association (KWIA), Seoul. (Slides )

The panelists highlighted some of the most common barriers that women face when they embark in their innovation and invention journey, such as:

Lack of access to resources, including financial and knowledge resources;
Under-representation of women in STEM fields, as well as other IP-related fields, that limit exposure to role models;
Lack of understanding of the value of IP rights;
Discrimination, bias, sexism, socio-cultural norms and expectations.

In addition, the limited availability of sex-disaggregated data and other gender-sensitive indicators hampers the ability of policy makers and IP practitioners to better understand the breadth and depth of the IP gender gap.

Panelists presented recommendations to help address these barriers, which included, for example, the adoption of a gender-sensitive policy for the IP Office (Chile), and the provision of targeted capacity building activities to women inventors (South Korea).

The full session is available via Webcasting.

The sessions series was developed within the framework of a decision taken by the Committee on Development and Intellectual Property (CDIP) at its 22^nd session held in November 2018, based on a proposal by Mexico.

Coming up next

Session on “Closing the Gender Gap in Intellectual Property – Exploring Multi-Stakeholder initiatives”, date to be announced soon.

Related information

DA Project on Increasing the Role of Women in Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Encouraging Women in Developing Countries to Use the Intellectual Property System