A study by the National Women’s Business Council finds that the number of patents granted to women jumped 35 percent in 2010. The total number of patents granted in the United States was up 27 percent from 2009.
While this seems like progress, we must note that in 2010 women were granted 22,984 patents in the United States. This was only 9.4 percent of all patents granted that year.
Up until this time the U.S. patent office has not asked for gender information on patent applications. The information in this study was garnered by an independent review of the names on patent applications over a 35-year period. About 6 percent of the names in the patent database could not be easily identified as belonging to either a man or a woman.
New legislation has granted the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office the authority to collect gender data.