WIPO Women and IP Symposium

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) just wrapped up its 4th annual symposium, 2026 Women and IP Symposium, a massive three-day official summit that went down from May 11 to 13, 2026, at the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.

Global data from WIPO and the European Patent Office shows that even though women are graduating in STEM at comparable rates, they are still heavily underrepresented in actual patent filings. Most international patent applications still list men as the primary inventors. There is a major push toward making gender-disaggregated data a standard legal requirement for national IP offices so countries can track exactly where the legal and procedural system is failing female creators.[1]

AI VC Problem: One of the heaviest sessions, led by venture capitalists, deliberated how the boom in AI and the digital economy is widening the gap for female founders. They looked at what VC investors are actually betting on right now and how women inventors are getting boxed out of AI patents.[2]

Fixing the Data: Right now, most global patent data is a mess and doesn't clearly track the gender of who is submitting what. They spent a massive chunk of time trying to standardize "sex-disaggregated data" across international patent offices so governments can actually see where women are getting dropped from the pipeline. The solution to combat this is to systematically record patent data using the submitter’s gender as a metric.

The Leak in STEM: They actively looked at why women are graduating with tech and science degrees but their names disappear by the time a company actually files an international patent application.[3]

The summit forced the international community to come to terms with the fact that the current IP system is bleeding female talent and money, thus prompting the stakeholders to take measures to overhaul the rules, lower filing barriers, and figure out how to get more women locked into the AI gold rush.

The IPGAP Global Database Rulebook

WIPO formally launched and scaled a global database tracking over 200 specific national policies. Instead of letting countries just give lip service to diversity, national IP offices are now forced to log their concrete legal frameworks.

The Spain Model (Legal Mandates)

At the symposium, they put Spain on a pedestal because Spain actually used legislation to force change. Spain enacted a national equality law requiring all companies with more than 50 employees to have strict gender plans, as a result of which women now make up the absolute majority of Spain's Patent and Trademark Office workforce and hold top managerial positions. Other countries are now actively drafting similar regulatory hooks to tie corporate compliance to patent fast-tracking.[4]

Dedicated Bootcamps

To stop women-led startups from getting crushed by legal fees and procedural red tape, national offices launched literal structural lifelines:

• Austria's "Buddy for Her" Initiative: The Austrian Patent Office rolled out a program that assigns a dedicated technical and pricing mentor to female inventors to actively walk them through the complex patenting pipeline.[5]

• Canada's IP Bootcamp & Clinics: The Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) teamed up with WIPO to run targeted "IP Bootcamps" and specialized legal clinics (like their FemTech clinic) providing free, one-on-one legal matchmaking to protect women-led tech startups before venture capitalists strip their ideas.[6]

  
  

In order to track accurate data, WIPO has successfully pushed international patent applications to standardize sex-disaggregated data, compelling the IP community to confront the bias. By legally tracking the gender metrics on filings, tech firms and universities are consistently leaving female researchers off the patent application paperwork shall be encouraged to resolve the gap.

References: [1] (2024). World Intellectual Property Indicators 2024: Highlights - Patents Highlights. World Intellectual Property Organization. https://www.wipo.int/web-publications/world-intellectual-property-indicators-2024-highlights/en/patents-highlights.html?dkanapp=1

[2] (May 12, 2026). Building in the Age of AI: What Venture Capital Investors Are Really Betting On and What It Means for Women Founders and Inventors. World Intellectual Property Organization. https://www.wipo.int/en/web/wipo-magazine/articles/2026/building-in-the-age-of-ai-what-venture-capital-investors-are-really-betting-on-and-what-it-means-for-women-founders-and-inventors

[3] Carpentier, E. & Raffo, J. (n.d.). The Global Gender Gap in Innovation and Creativity: An International Comparison of the Gender Gap in Global Patenting over Two Decades. https://www.wipo.int/publications/en/details.jsp?id=4653&plang=EN

[4](n.d.). Royal Decree 901/2020 regulates the development, content, and mandatory registration of equality plans in Spanish companies. It establishes that any company with 50 or more employees must have a negotiated and registered equality plan. [1, 2, 3].. https://www.boe.es/eli/es/rd/2020/10/13/901/con

[5] (2026). BUDDY FOR HER. Austrian Patent Office. https://www.patentamt.at/buddy-for-her

[6] Organization, W. I., Office, I. P. & Office, C. I. (June 18, 2024). Launch of the Intellectual Property Management Clinic - FemTech program. WIPO. https://www.wipo.int/en/web/business/w/news/2024/news_0016