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STATISTICS
Women Inventors |
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Published by
IFIA
the International Federation of
Inventors' Associations
www.invention-ifia.ch
Last Update: November
21, 2003 |
©María Colina (Spain) |
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Statistics on women
inventors: A worldwide view
by Dr Farag Moussa ©
President of the International Federation of Inventors' Associations (IFIA)
(Study published by the author in his book Women Inventors Organizations,
Geneva, IFIA Publications, 1994)
Are women inventors really a rare species?
Take a look at these dismal figures based on patent data published in the early 1980s:
0.5% Norway
1 % Canada, Finland, Sweden
1.2 % France
1.7 % USA
From the moment I tackled this subject, I felt these studies were
superficial and the figures wrong. There are women inventors who are invisible in patent
statistics. Here are some reasons:
| Automatically, an inventor will be considered a man when a
patent bears only the family name; an initial for the first name ; or a first name that
could be either masculine or feminine, such as Pat, Robin, Jacky, Chris, Toni, Jo, Alex in
English, or Dominique, Claude and Camille in French. |
| In some countries (i.e., France) the inventor's name,
whether male or female, is not always mentioned. How can anybody undertake a serious study
using such poor data? |
| In the case of inventions undertaken by a team,
statisticians may consider the team leader's name only. It is first on the list and most
of the time belongs to a man. Thus, many women co-inventors remain invisible. |
To all these reasons some people add the old complaint : that
men deprive women of the fruits of their own minds. They say, "Think of all those
women whose inventions were hidden under the name of a father, husband, brother, son, or
any other male in the family!". This was true in the past, and probably still
is in some cases, but nowadays you could find just as easily a male inventor hiding behind
a woman's name: wife, sister, daughter. The reasons for this vary from the mainly
financial - inheritance, taxes - to legal: a man working for a firm or company, and
therefore not allowed by his employer to apply for a patent. Of course, the employee
inventor can also be a woman, which makes things even more complicated. So please be
careful with statistics.
If all statistical failings, errors and omissions in general,
and of patent statistics in particular, were taken into consideration, the percentage of
women inventors would be definitely higher and more encouraging to women.
While doing research for my first book on women inventors, I
undertook a detailed study in my own country, Egypt, in 1985. The patent
system was established there in 1951. In Egypt the name of the inventor is always
mentioned on the patent, and the gender of Egyptian names is quite clearly masculine or
feminine. I based my study on the statistics published on the occasion of the 30th
anniversary of the Egyptian patent system, statistics from 1951 to 1981.
To begin with, I went through the inventors' names and reached the conclusion that in this
underdeveloped country, the percentage of women inventors was at least as high as 6
%! From a total of 514 Egyptian inventors, there were no fewer than 29
women. I then examined the list of inventions patented during the same period.
From a total of 609 inventions, women had invented, or participated in, 37 of them.
Some years later, when collecting material for a book on
women inventors to be published in Finnish, I asked the Patent Office of Finland
to draw up a list of patents granted to Finnish women inventors over the previous five
years, 1984 to 1988, regardless of whether their names appeared as sole
inventors or co-inventors. I noted that:
| Between 1984 and 1988, 77 women had developed, or participated
in the development of 80 inventions. This was quite a blow to those who pretended that
only a handful of women inventors existed in Finland! |
| 40 of the above inventions, that is 50% of the inventions
patented by women, were developed in firms and companies. As for the remaining 50% they
were the result of the work of independent women inventors. The majority had patented one
invention only. Quite a number had gone on to form their own company. |
| During 1988, the last year under study, 24 patented inventions
were developed, solely or in part, by Finnish women representing 3.1% of the total 778
patents granted to Finnish residents. That figure is three times the estimated 1% put
forward at the time. |
In 1990, the U.S.
Patent Office published Buttons to Biotech, a detailed
report of the number of women inventors based on patent data for the period 1977
to 1988. Although the U.S. Patent Office admitted in its study that,
"inventors having given names
which could not be easily characterized as male
or female, were assumed to be male
" (sic) and that "
the results
presented must be regarded as approximations", the survey offers some encouraging
figures nevertheless.
In 1988, the percentage of
patents for inventions granted to women resident in the USA had reached 5.16%.
It was larger when it came to plant patents: 6.92%, or industrial designs: 9.49%.
At the time, the greatest number of U.S.
women inventors were found in the field of chemistry: 9.87% in 1988. This
figure had increased three and a half times during the 12-year period under review (2.8%
in 1977). The study also noted that women inventors participation in chemical technology
is particularly evident in biotechnology and pharmaceutical areas.
No figures are given in the U.S. 1990
official report on computer software simply because software was then nonpatentable. Yet
it is known that women are very creative in this field. The most famous among them all is
American Grace Hopper, inventor of the first completed compiler (1952), a sensational
breakthrough that opened the door for automatic programming and indirectly for PCs today.
Until then computer programmers had to write time-consuming instructions for each new
software package, and computers were huge. Things changed radically with the invention of
the compiler, a computer program that translates a programming language so that it can be
understood by computers.
Another important point is that most
scientists - be they men or women, and there are more and more women in science - still do
not patent their inventions. They prefer to present the results of their investigations
and research orally in seminars or symposiums and/or to publish them in scientific
journals.
CONCLUSION
As we have seen, patents tell only half the story of women inventors. Unveiling the other
half is essential if exact figures concerning the percentage of women inventors in a given
country are to be established. One thing is certain : if it were possible to add
the number of nonpatented inventions to the number of patented inventions,
we would discover that the percentage of women inventors in our modern world is higher
than the figures given by the most meticulous patent statistical surveys. This
percentage is increasing constantly.
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Women Inventions on the
IFIA Internet Inventions Store (IFIS) <http://www.invention-ifia.ch/store.htm>
(Poster prepared by Farag
Moussa, IFIA President, for Genius exhibition, Budapest, April 2002)
Percentage
of Inventions
Out of the 300 first inventions on IFIS as of March 19, 2002 :
Women were involved in 62 inventions : 20,7%
Women were sole or principal inventors of 47 inventions :15,7%
Out of the 62 inventions :
30 inventions were created by women as sole inventors
17 inventions were created by women as principal co-inventors
15 inventions were created by women as secondary co-inventors |
Technical Fields |
The following correspond to the 8 main technical fields (Sections A -
H) under the International Patent Classification (IPC): |
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A. |
Human Necessities |
43 |
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B. |
Performing
Operations, Transporting |
2 |
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C. |
Chemistry, Metallurgy |
9 |
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D. |
Textiles, Paper |
1 |
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E. |
Fixed Constructions |
0 |
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F. |
Mechanical
Engineering, Lighting, Heating, Weapons, Blasting |
4 |
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G. |
Physics |
3 |
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H. |
Electricity |
0 |
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Number of inventions per Country
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10
6
4
4
4
4
3 |
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Germany
China
Benin
Cuba
Syria
United Kingdom
Romania |
2
2
2
2
1
1
1 |
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Hungary
Israel
Malaysia
Morocco
Argentina
Austria
Bosnia |
1
1
1
1
1
1 |
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Burkina Faso
Côte d'Ivoire
Croatia
Iceland
India
Iran |
1
1
1
1
1
1 |
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Ireland
Libya
Philippines
Senegal
Chad
Uruguay |
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Statistics on women inventors: Denmark
A report from Denmark
(Article published in IFIA-WIN,
No. 3, January-June 1996)
DaFFO, the Danish Association for the Promotion of Inventions, is to
be congratulated for having participated in a study on women inventors jointly with the
Danish Patent Office, the Danish Technology Institute/Danish Innovation Centre, and the
Women's Museum. The report was published in Danish, end of 1995, and IFIA also received a
non official English abstract.
IFIA's interest was not so much on the situation
during the past 100 years (database collected a few years ago by the Women's Museum when
it organized an exhibition entitled: Women Inventors 1896-1990), but rather on
more recent statistics and trends obtained by the other three organizations through
questionnaires, statistical surveys, and interviews.
Here are some of the most striking points in this
report:
| Danish women have not been stimulated by special initiatives
(organized women inventors associations, visibility in society, etc.) to promote the women
inventor issue as has been done in other Nordic countries (Finland and Sweden in
particular). The exhibition on women inventors which was set up by the Women's Museum in
two towns was an exception and not the rule. |
| Women accounted at the time (1990-1993 statistics) for 4.9%
of patents granted to Danish citizens. This is a significant increase when compared with
the average of 1.5% representing the period 1896 to 1990. |
| More and more women invent as part of their job. However,
the female contribution among employed inventors is difficult to measure. The above
percentage concerns only independent inventors. |
| In recent years, chemistry has become the major area
in terms of patents granted to women. "Human necessities" was the major field of
interest of women inventors during the period 1896 to 1990. |
| In 1993, women made up 33% of the audience at courses
and other information events organized by the Danish Patent Office. The percentage reached
50% when it came to courses concerning the patenting of foodstuff and medicine - areas
where there has been an increase in the number of patents granted to women during recent
years. These figures prove the strong interest shown by women inventors to improve their
knowledge of inventions and patents, traditionally considered a man's field. |
| Women inventors account for 9% of the inventors who seek
advice and support annually from the Danish Technology Institute/Danish Innovation
Centre. Again, this is a positive attitude when it is remembered that patents granted to
women represented only 4.9% of the total. It should be noted that women inventors
have stressed that the exchange of experience with other inventors, e.g., within an
inventor association such as DaFFO, is very important. |
| The report, while noting that women entrepreneurs
represent 33% of new business growth in Denmark, stresses the necessity of
promoting increased awareness among women of their potential for the development of
new product ideas and the commercial follow-up. |
Girls
by Dr Farag Moussa
©
They say girls
are not interested in invention contests. Experience in several countries proves the
contrary. When girls are encouraged to participate in invention contests for the
young, their number increased year after year. The statistics concerning the
participation of girls in the young inventors' contest, Finn Opp, in Sweden are eloquent.
12%
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24%
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37%
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43%
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51%
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50%
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50%
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56%
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1979 |
1983
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1985 |
1988 |
1991 |
1994 |
1997 |
2000 |
For more details on the subject go to our
page on Youth entitled Girls and Inventions.
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