Dealing with Gender Disparity in the Patent Profession

On February 11, as many celebrated International Day of Women and Girls in Science, Managing Intellectual Property reflected on the gender disparity between men and women in the intellectual property (IP) field and STEM. A 2020 UK parliamentary report found that 65% of the UK’s STEM workforce was made up of white men. According to a 2021 report from the UK’s Higher Education Statistics Agency, only 35% of students studying STEM subjects are women. Managing Intellectual Property interviewed Finnegan partner Esther Lim for her insight into the gender disparity. 

Esther explained that her new role as Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer at Finnegan did not exist when she first entered the IP law profession over 25 years ago. She stated, "Back then, attempts to raise diversity issues were met with confusion, resistance, or defensiveness.”

She believes that roles like the chief diversity and inclusion officer position are reflective of a "growing sense of urgency” in the IP law sphere. 

Esther further explained that the narrow focus on gender inequality in STEM does not fully capture the complexity of the issues in patent law or help to solve the larger issue at hand: "There is no uniform set of challenges and solutions that apply to every underrepresented group.”

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