What Price Innovation?
Female Inventors & The New Zealand Patent System
Susan Corbett
Although I have a first degree in chemistry I am not a scientist by profession. I studied law and worked as a solicitor for some years before taking up a position as a lecturer in commercial law. However I have always retained an interest in science and I was intrigued when my neighbour at a conference in intellectual property law introduced herself as a patent attorney. I was even more interested when I learnt that she had rarely, if ever, had any female clients. Our conversation led me to begin a research project on women inventors in New Zealand, of which the following article represents a brief summary.
History records few successful female inventors. By 1910, inventions by women accounted for less than 1% of all patents issued in the United States. However, before drawing any conclusions concerning female propensities to invent and female innovative abilities in general, it is necessary to bear two highly significant factors in mind. First, not all inventors will choose to patent their invention. Second, there are a range of possible causes, other than the patent system, for the apparent lack of female inventors, including gender biased education, possible gender differences in creative capabilities, domestic responsibilities and lower salaries. My research demonstrates that both time and money are essential attributes for the successful patentee.
Out of a group of 18,530 initial applications for patents filed at the Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand (IPONZ) between 1998 and 2000, 3,491 (19%) were from males. The majority (80%) were from corporations or research and development branches of manufacturing enterprises. Only 150 applicants, less than 1%, were females. Numbers of female inventors overseas tend to comprise between 3 and 10% of total patentees.
Thirty-eight women patent applicants agreed to participate in the research. Participants’ ages ranged from sixteen to late seventies. Sixty per cent had attended co-educational state schools. The remainder were evenly divided between private and state all-girls schools. Several participants in the over 45 age group mentioned their frustrating experiences of former rigid attitudes to ‘girls’ and ‘boys’ subjects, observing in particular that girls were not permitted to study carpentry, engineering or technical drawing. Other criticisms of the education system included school policies which channel more academically-able students into the traditional ‘academic’ disciplines rather than recognising that they may be equally gifted at more practical creative subjects. The lack of any business training was also criticised.
The inventions developed by the research participants ranged across a broad spectrum of innovation. Fifty per cent of inventions were intended to target the whole population, while only 6% were intended for a solely female market. Eleven participants had invented mechanical items, while ten had invented in the area of fabric technology. Five had developed a new process. Two had undertaken electrical or electronic innovation, while the categories of chemical innovation and food technology had each attracted one participant. Eight claimed other categories’ of inventions, which included inventions such as health aids, a versatile picture framing system, an aid for teaching reading, and farm equipment for animal husbandry.
Twenty-two women chose not to continue with their patent applications after making the initial application due to the prohibitive expense and the time consuming complexity of the patent system. The inventions of twelve participants who had completed the full patent application process were now being marketed. One participant stated that before she could develop her patented invention for marketing, it was already being manufactured overseas. She suspects that the idea had been copied from the IPONZ Internet database and observes that it is easy for large wealthy corporations to begin development and production well before the individual inventor can raise finance for research and development.
| “the entire process (from invention to marketing) is both daunting and time-consuming for the amateur inventor” |
Another participant observed that the entire process (from invention to marketing) is both daunting and time-consuming for the amateur inventor. She pointed out that many of the steps require specialised knowledge and skills, which she had had to acquire on her own. She was disappointed in the lack of assistance from government business organisations and suggests that a specialised agency is required to offer real ‘handson’ assistance. Other participants confirmed that their own lack of experience in marketing and a lack of funds to enable them to employ expert assistance had led them to abandon their hopes of marketing their invention to recoup the expense of patenting.
Not all participants had employed a patent attorney – some were confident of being able to cope with the process on their own. For others, the patent attorney fees were beyond their reach. Those who did employ a patent attorney tended to be somewhat critical of their service. One of the more extreme examples cited was that of a male attorney who informed the participant that ‘if [her invention] was such a good idea then someone else would have done it’. While seemingly incredible in contemporary New Zealand this kind of attitude is, apparently, far from unusual and has been termed the ‘so what’ syndrome by the US researcher, Professor Fred Amram. In Amram’s view the ‘so what’ syndrome is most likely to be experienced by women and girls: women’s work has historically been little valued and so to invent new tools, products or processes to alleviate drudgery or to enhance the quality of ‘woman’s work’ has been deemed unimportant.
Other more general criticisms by participants included a perception of being patronised by male patent attorneys, and an inability of patent attorneys to explain the procedures clearly to their clients. In their defence it should be noted that patent attorneys are very conscious of the cost of their services. For this reason lengthy interviews tend to be discouraged and clients are often referred to explanatory pamphlets that set out the complexities of the patenting process in more detail. One participant explained that she had been able to reduce her patent attorney costs by requesting assistance with the process rather than having it carried out completely.
| “It is thought that having a condition causing iron accumulation offered a survival advantage for those with a low dietary iron intake or for women who had many pregnancies.” |
The tentative conclusion to be drawn from the research is that the expense of the
patent system is a significant cause of the lack of successful female patentees in New Zealand. The variety of inventions described by the research participants indicates against any innate female lack of creativity, although lack of confidence, and lack of business and technology skills appear to be factors in the failure of many of the participants to produce a marketable product from their inventions.
However, although the patent statistics indicate a significant difference between numbers of individual female inventors and numbers of individual male inventors, the most marked difference is between the numbers of patent applications from overseas based corporates, and the numbers from local ‘small-scale’ inventors, be they male or female, or New Zealand based small or medium enterprise SME). This may indicate that the individual male inventor and the SME are also disadvantaged by the expense of the patent system, although perhaps to a lesser extent than the female inventor. Similar results have been documented in other countries, although many of these countries have now taken positive steps to assist their small-scale inventors.
In particular, many overseas
countries are
addressing fundamental issues for small-scale inventors
(such as a lack of funds, a lack of access to
skilled assistance in marketing and manufacturing,
lack of confidence in technical matters, and a fear
of the expensive litigation that patenting may
invite) by the establishment of:
second tier patent systems, such as the innovation patent in Australia which emulates similar systems in 48 other countries,
innovation or inventors’ centres subsidised by the State,
websites that offer inventors alternatives to the traditional intellectual property system, such as the United States based ‘Idea Exchange’,
award programmes such as the prestigious British Female Inventor of the Year Award, now in its fourth year, and
workshops and projects such as the Canadian Women Inventors Project, which is aimed at encouraging young women to pursue careers in science and technology and at increasing the numbers of successful women inventors.
Susan Corbett is a lecturer in commercial law at Victoria University in Wellington, NZ. Her research led to a women inventors’ support group (“Wominventors New Zealand”), which currently meets in Wellington. They hope eventually to expand their group to include members from throughout New Zealand.