Closing the Gender Gap in Patenting: Evidence from a Randomized Control Trial at the USPTOIndian Rupee

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Pairolero, Nicholas A.; Toole, Andrew A.; Pappas, Peter-Anthony; de Grazia, Charles A. W.; Teodorescu, Mike H. M.
• 署名单位: University of Washington
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-ECONOMIC POLICY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7731
• DOI: 10.1257/pol.20230253
• 发表日期: 2025
• 页码: 281-310
• 关键词: disambiguation; inventors

摘要

Analyzing a randomized control trial at the United States Patent and Trademark Office that was designed to provide additional help to applicants who do not have legal representation, we find heterogeneous causal impacts across inventor gender, driven primarily by an increase in successful negotiations by women inventor teams via the use of examiner's amendments. While both men and women applicants benefited, the probability of obtaining a patent was over 12 percentage points greater for women. Our results suggest that a portion of the gender gap in patenting could be eliminated through additional assistance during patent examination. (JEL J16, O31, O34, O38)