Gender and Innovation Strategy (Toshiko TAKENAKA)
January 2023 marks my 30th year as a faculty member at the University of Washington School of Law. When I first arrived in Seattle in September 1989, I stayed for less than a year to learn the basics of American law until graduating from the Asian Law LLM, and in the second year, I planned to return to Japan after taking various patent courses at the Intellectual Property LLM at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and gaining practical experience in filing applications. This appointment was changed and extended to three years at the suggestion of Professor Chisholm, who supervised my master's thesis, to stay in Seattle and write my doctoral dissertation. Furthermore, when I went to greet him after obtaining his doctorate, I received an offer to help him with the institute he had created, and although I intended to work as a researcher for only a few years after the institute was established, I decided to take over from Professor Chisholm, who moved to Santa Clara University, and before I knew it, my stay in the United States was longer than in Japan. The first reason I studied abroad at the University of Washington was that I wanted to learn about U.S. patent law because I was struggling to file an application in Japan for an application sent from the U.S. headquarters at a foreign-affiliated semiconductor company where I worked as a patent clerk in accordance with the standards of the Japan Patent Office. On the other hand, even in foreign companies that thought they were better than Japan companies, I think there was also a desire for female employees who did not have a science background to escape from the sense of stagnation that there was only so much they could do in the patent department. Even after obtaining a patent attorney qualification, there was no change in work or position in the patent department, and women were tired of dealing with inventors who called on the premise that they would support male employees. My husband, who had heard my complaints, found a law and patent firm in Nagatacho that was looking for a patent attorney in the electrical field under unbeatable conditions in a job magazine, and at the interview, I got a promise to study abroad within three years, and I moved to that office less than half a year after passing the patent attorney exam.
Coming to Seattle, one of the most liberal cities in the United States, I had completely forgotten about this Japan experience until this year, when I was asked by the Japan Intellectual Property Association (JIPA) to give a talk on diversity from an academic perspective. Therefore, in response to JIPA's question, "Have you ever given up or become passive because you are a woman?", I initially replied that there was none. Later, I recalled my interaction with Dean (the principal) of the law school when I took over the institute from Professor Chisholm. I was reluctant to ask Dean to become the director of the institute because I feared that a woman in her early 30s would be viewed lightly by seminar speakers and participants from Japan and Europe. Dean's answer that he had not yet obtained tenure and thought that it might affect the number of papers required for promotion but did not think about it at all because he was a woman made me realize that I was unwittingly bound by Japan's view of women. Thanks to Dean, who encouraged me with gender-free words, I have been able to work with IP researchers and legal professionals around the world for more than 20 years as the director of the institute, and I think I have contributed to the international harmonization of the patent system by introducing the patent systems in Japan and Europe to local American patent lawyers through seminars. Recently, I have been learning about the activities of the students I have educated through IP LLMs and summer programs as patent attorneys, lawyers, and examiners on social media, and I cannot thank the late Dean enough for giving me such a fulfilling vocation.
In fact, until I was asked to do so by JIPA, I think I deliberately avoided the theme of gender. More than half of the professors at the University of Washington School of Law are women, and now Dean and other key positions are held by women, and even when I came to the United States 30 years ago and aspired to become a researcher, there were many prominent female IP professors such as Rochelle Dreyfuss, Jane Ginsburg, and Windy Gordon who were my role models. I had completely forgotten about gender issues. I also can't deny that I had a prejudice that when women brought up gender issues, they would be shunned because they would be seen as troublesome women if they overreacted to their sense of entitlement or men's words and actions. At a seminar I hosted, I became interested in the relationship between gender and business and R&D when I heard the view of the general manager of a major semiconductor company that it is common knowledge in the United States that the diversity of executives and employees has a positive impact on technological innovation and corporate growth. An empirical study by economists and sociologists found that companies with a higher median percentage of female managers had a higher probability of survival in startups with higher capital growth rates and a higher percentage of female founders. In addition, a number of research results have been published that show that gender diversity has a positive impact on innovation outcomes.
Such research shows that gender is not just a social justice issue, but an important factor in corporate management and innovation strategies. For this reason, the governments of the United States and the European Union are actively taking measures to increase the number of female science, technology, engineering, mathematics (STEM) human resources in order to improve the diversity and quality of research. In the field of intellectual property, WIPO, an international organization, has set gender equality as an important issue in its action plan and is conducting various educational activities to support women inventors. The USPTO and EPO also publish the percentage of female inventors in their filings every year, and are making various efforts to correct the disparity with men. In addition, a project has been launched in which researchers play a central role in collaborating with companies to expand the diversity of not only gender but also those involved in innovation on a global scale. According to data released by WIPO in 2021, the percentage of PCT international applications involving female inventors in Japan is 10%, ranking 69th, the lowest among developed countries. Compared to other countries in Asia, the increase in the proportion of applications involving female inventors in Japan is slow, and the gap tends to widen more and more than in Europe and the United States. Despite this situation, there has been no active action by the Japan government or the JPO to correct the disparity. I would like to work with researchers and companies in Europe and the United States to lobby the Japan government and JPO to contribute to the promotion of innovation in Japan by increasing the number of female researchers and inventors.
〈 Toshiko TAKENAKA (RC)〉
