Gender bias in patenting process

Abstract

• The number of patent collaborations conforms to the power-law distribution. • Women are underrepresented in the invention and patenting process. • Both male and female have strong preference for same-gender inventors. • It needs intensify efforts to combat gender bias in the patenting process. Collaboration among inventors is very important in patenting an invention. Inventors collaborate based on their professional knowledge and experience. Because of the non-disclosure nature of the invention process, it is difficult to test the factors influencing collaboration between inventors, e.g., gender bias. In this study, employing the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) dataset with 6.64 million patents, we have identified the gender of 4.66 million inventors, including 2.12 million lead inventors and 2.54 million joint inventors. We find that women are underrepresented in the patent collaboration process and that both genders have strong preference for same-gender inventors. Moreover, even in those fields that have equal proportions of male and female inventors, gender bias persists. These results highlight the need to intensify efforts to combat gender bias in the patenting process rather than focusing solely on the lack of equal gender representation in the numerical proportions.