The Creator Fund has released a report titled, “State of
Student Startups,” concerning university student involvement at around 545 startups
in the UK. Notably, the report states
that Covid-19 has not slowed down student engagement in startups. Moreover, some interesting statistics are
that around 57% of students involved in university startups are foreign
born, and pretty close to half
of students involved in university startups are BAME (Black, Asian, Minority
Ethnic) and are women. Over 60% of the
startups at Oxford and Cambridge “have at least one BAME founder.” These data are very heartening given some of
the other statistics about the lack of some racial and ethnic minorities and female
involvement in inventing. Indeed, in the
United States, the United States Patent and Trademark Office relatively recently released
a report stating that women are still not represented similarly to their percentage
of the overall population in inventing demonstrated by patents (around 20%);
although, the percentage of women participating as inventors is increasing. Here are the USPTO’s report’s major findings:
- More
women are entering and staying active in the patent system than ever
before.
- The
number of patents with at least one woman inventor increased from 20.7% in
2016 to 21.9% by the end of 2019.
- The
“Women Inventor Rate” (WIR) – the share of U.S. inventors receiving
patents who are women – increased from 12.1% in 2016 to 12.8% in 2019.
- The
share of women among new inventors on issued patents increased from 16.6%
in 2016 to 17.3% by 2019.
- The
gender gap in the number of women inventors who remain active by patenting
again within five years is decreasing. For new inventors in 2014, 46% of
women patented again in the next five years versus 52% of men (by 2019).
In 1980, the gap was 28% for women versus 38% for men.
- Among
the leading patent filers, the 3M Company showed the largest improvement
in the participation of women inventor-patentees: Their average WIR
increased from 15.2% over 2007-2016 to 16.6% for 2007-2019.