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WIPR Influential Women in IP 2019
www.worldipreview.com
WIPO Interview
A long wait
for balance
Women’s participation in Patent Cooperation
Treaty applications has improved over time,
but a gender balance may not be achieved
until 2080, according to a 2016 report from the
World Intellectual Property Organization.
We spoke to director general Francis Gurry
about his views.
imply stated, unless we have gender
equality, humanity is not realising its
full innovative and creative potential,”
says Francis Gurry, director general
“S
of the World Intellectual Property Organization
(WIPO).
Gurry himself was one of the first to enlist with
International Gender Champions, a leadership
network that brings together decision-makers to
break down gender barriers.
He committed to providing unconscious
bias training to senior managers and providing
individualised support for career and professional
development to a minimum of five women per year
in WIPO’s higher ranks.
As of March 2019, the network has more than
WIPO is urging
country leaders
to ‘bend the
trend’ and make
gender parity a
reality sooner.
235 active champions and alumni who are heads of
international organisations such as WIPO and civil
society organisations.
Along with these commitments, Gurry has
worked to highlight the role women play in IP.
To help drive awareness, WIPO chose the theme
of “Powering Change: Women in Innovation and
Creativity” for World Intellectual Property Day
2018.
A record number of activities took place
around the world—more than 630 events in 135
countries. World IP Review was involved, featuring
influential women in the IP industry, including Asta
Valdimarsdottir, director of the operations division
of the Madrid Registry at WIPO.
Statistics tell the story
Figures published by WIPO the same day were
sobering. WIPO’s latest data clearly illustrate that
gender gaps, particularly in patenting, persist.
Women were listed in around 31% of all international
patent applications, up from 23% a decade earlier.
Beneath these high-level statistics lie uglier
results. WIPO provided WIPR with more in-depth
statistics, which show that only 8% of Patent
Cooperation Treaty (PCT) patents filed named a
majority of women inventors. The number drops
further when you look at the share of patents with
only female inventors (5.3%).
Participation of women inventors in PCT
applications, 2000–2017
2003 2010 2017
22.1%
24,004
26.3%
39,613
31.2%
68,270
Data kindly supplied by WIPO