Increasing diversity in inventorship and innovation

Abstract

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields lag behind the total US workforce in terms of gender, racial, and ethnic diversity, something the American Chemical Society aims to address through goal 5 of its strategic plan. Many people have assumed that the lack of diversity among inventors was related to this underrepresentation. Until recent years, such assumptions could not be validated because patent offices did not collect demographic information from inventors. However, the World Intellectual Property Organization and the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) investigated the percentage of women inventors among all inventors using a name-based attribution algorithm and found that the percentage of women inventors is substantially lower than women’s education and employment as scientists and engineers. The USPTO reports that within chemistry-related patents, women made up approximately 18% of inventors from 2007 to 2016. While an increase in the pipeline of women scientists and engineers can enable excellence,