Number Of Patents Granted To Women Climbed 35 Percent In 2010

Seems you can’t throw a stone these days without hitting yet another study that claims women don’t like doing startups. But a new report from the National Women’s Business Council shows that women entrepreneurs may be gaining more traction than we thought.

Proof? A whopping 22,984 patents were granted to women in 2010, according to the NWBC study. That’s up a staggering 35 percent from the previous year, when just 17,061 patents were given to ladies.

To compile the report, researchers actually picked out patent-holders’ gender by examining each name on the applications. And how do you figure out what name goes with with gender? By combing through U.S. Census Bureau and U.S. Social Security Administration records to determine the 10,000 most common names for men and women. And while this sounds a little hit-or-miss at first, the NWBC says that just 6 percent of the names on the patents were unidentifiable by gender. The result? A surprisingly comprehensive snapshot at how women and entrepreneurship are evolving.

Here’s what NWBC Chair Donna James had to say about the study:

“Patent and trademark ownership often is an indicator of entrepreneurial activity – and historically, women have not been a large segment of this group. A bump in IP ownership could indicate strong growth in women-owned companies. NWBC actively sought out this study because little research has specifically examined women business owners and intellectual property.”

You can check out the rest of the report here.

TAGS: national women's business council | number of patents women | nwbc patents report | women entrepreneurs

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