Women's Stake in IP on the Up

Chad Brooks at LiveScience says "female entrepreneurs are flexing their intellectual muscles like never before." Citing data from a National Women's Business Council study, Brooks says that "in 2010, 18 percent of all patents went to women, compared with 14 percent a decade earlier, and just 9 percent 20 years before." Similarly, trademarks issued to women have increased. "Women were granted fewer than 17 percent of all trademarks to individuals or sole proprietorships in 1980; that number rose to 33 percent in 2010," he says, adding that the NWBC's study "is the first of its kind to explore the rates of women applying for and receiving patents and trademarks, mainly because federal applications do not ask for gender information."