2022 Patent Report Update: Who Invents IT?

In 2007 and 2012, the National Center for Women & Information Technology, in partnership with 1790 Analytics, published prior reports on gendered patterns in IT patenting, analyzing records from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The original report examined women’s patenting rates in IT and how these rates evolved over the prior 25 years. It also identified how these rates differ across IT industry sub-categories and across specific organizations. This new edition updates those findings, examining U.S. patent data from 1980-2020.

Women’s Patents Hit New High

New research shows women’s IT patenting is at a new high. The National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) tracks changes in patenting trends along gender lines using U.S. Patent and Trademark Office records in partnership with 1790 Analytics. After compiling data dating back to 1980, the 2022 NCWIT Patent Report shows continued increases in patents filed by teams with at least one woman inventor. Highlights include: 

• In the last 5 years, approximately 10% of U.S.-invented IT patents were invented by women: Between 2011 and 2015, the patenting rate for women was 7.8%%, up from the original report’s findings of 4.7% between 1980 and 2010.
  
  
• Overall IT patenting is rapidly increasing: IT patenting has grown substantially in the last four decades. In the U.S. alone, it increased almost 17-fold from 27,153 patents between 1980-84 to 452,315 total patents from 2016-2020.
  
  
• Meanwhile, women’s patenting rates are up 56-fold despite no increase in women’s participation in the computing workforce: For women inventors to increase their patenting share during this period, they had to increase patenting by higher-than-average growth rates. Women’s patenting increased 56-fold from 1980-84 and 2017-2020, even as the percentage of women employed in IT either remained flat or decreased slightly.
  
  
• Trends point to continuing progress: Although the overall level of women’s participation in IT patents remains relatively low, the trend shows an increase from 2% in 1980 to approximately 10% after 41 years of study. For evidence of growing inclusion in patenting, AI Learning and computer software are leading.

• Women’s patenting rates differ widely from one company to another. In some companies, women account for 20% to 30% of patents while in others they account for only 5% of patents. This suggests that individual organizational environments do matter and can influence women’s patenting patterns  

The original patent report was released in 2007, and looked at how rates had evolved in the 25 years between 1980 and 2005. A 5-year update was released in 2012. This 10-year update compiles more than 40 years of data, and includes detailed breakdowns of how trends differ across specific companies, organizations, and sectors – which can help change leaders hone in on and identify what is working well in areas with higher rates of patenting for women.