Closing the Gender Patenting Gap

Women are less likely, historically, than men to have a patent application end in an issued patent. Studies of U.S. patent prosecution show that women inventors face higher rejection rates, are less likely to succeed on appeal, and are more likely to abandon applications after early pushback, all of which contribute to a lower overall grant rate for women compared with men.

Recently, a paper titled, “Closing the Gender Gap in Patenting: Evidence from a Randomized Control Trial at the USPTO” (American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, August 2025) examined the disparities in patent applications based on the gender of the submitter. The findings indicated that persistence and appeal to application comments by patent examiners may change the outcome and the statistics of females receiving patents. 

Negotiating patent application comments brings success

The paper examined both men and women submitting patent applications without a patent attorney or “pro-se” and receiving comments on their applications from patent examiners. Women seemed to be better at negotiating these amendments and comments more successfully than men, stating that the success was “driven primarily by an increase in successful negotiations by women inventor teams via the use of examiner’s amendments.”

But both men and women inventors were more likely to receive patents when they received this additional assistance, but the effect was significantly larger for women-led inventor teams. Overall, the probability of getting a patent was more than 12 percentage points higher for women in the treatment group, and the estimated average treatment effect for women was around 18 percentage points, compared with roughly 6 percentage points for men.

Mike Teodorescu is an assistant professor and co-director of the iStartup Lab Affiliate of RAISE Lab and VSD Lab at the University of Washington Information School and co-author of the paper.

“As you may know, the patent system is complex and very costly, especially for individual investors who are starting new companies,” Teodorescu said. “Many… inventors do not have money for legal representation and file without a lawyer (pro se) which results in them often getting rejected, often with a lengthy legal terminology-heavy response from the patent office.”

Teodorescu knows what he is talking about because he was such an inventor and, while he managed to get through and obtain a patent, he found the process very difficult and extremely stressful.

“At the USPTO with the support of a senior patent examiner and the Office of the Chief Economist, the office ran a randomized control trial,” he explained. “Providing extra assistance (more friendly language, encouragements to contact the patent examiner with questions during the examination process) as treatment, and regular processing as control for pro se (unrepresented) inventors only. Both arms of the experiment went through the same rigorous examination.”

Teodorescu said the trial ended up helping an overall increase in patent grants by a statistically significant amount for the pro se inventors. He said the support from a patent examiner was especially helpful to women inventors and women-inventor teams, whose increase in patent grants was a double-digit percentage increase in treatment over control. 

“The mechanism was the examiner interview, which involves picking up the phone and scheduling an interview with the patent examiner to understand better the basis of the rejections and potentially negotiate an amendment to the application that may set it on the path for approval,” he said. 

Mechanical engineers are part of the mix

Teodorescu emphasized that the findings of the team’s study had no bias to mechanical engineering over any other area, but that it applies to all inventors in general. He explained that all inventors, “whether represented or not, should take advantage of patent examiner interviews to expedite their patent application approval process.”

The paper’s conclusion? Narrowing the gender gap among those who submit patents may be influenced by collaborating with the examiner and result in more patented technology sponsored and promoted by women applicants: 

“The gender patenting gap is closing over time but is not closing quickly. Narrowing the gap would ensure that women inventors are able to secure the benefits associated with receiving a patent, potentially raising the rate of invention and redirecting inventive resources toward technologies that might be especially beneficial to women.”

Jim Romeo is a technology writer in Chesapeake, Va.