admin
Aleck Ncube
THE World IP day was celebrated on April 26, and this year the theme of the day’s celebration was to highlight the vital role women play in innovation and creativity. The theme of this year’s celebrations was: “Powering Change: Women in Innovation and Creativity”. The focus of the celebrations this year was focusing on how women inventors came up with game-changing and life-enhancing innovations that transformed and improved our lives while empowering other women to do the same.
The theme was also aimed at celebrating the brilliance, ingenuity, drive and courage of the women driving change and shaping our world.
Women have a long history in creating revolutionary products and making key discoveries that lead to long-term, life changing innovations. Current developments around the gene-editing technology CRISPR, for example, would not be possible without Rosalind Franklin’s x-ray diffraction images from 1952. Women have been inventing for much longer. Women were responsible for brewing and developing beer in ancient times.
Today, more women are inventing than ever before. Where women are not directly involved in inventing things, they are increasingly leading the institutions that make those inventions possible. Women’s presence in the innovation sphere is, however, not reflected in the patent sphere where men still dominate. According to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) 2017 Patent Cooperation Treaty Yearly Review, just 31 percent of patents filed with the organisation included at least one female inventor. That number is double what it was in 2007, but the gender gap is still wide. At this rate of growth, women will achieve parity with men by 2076.
It is important to point out that there is limited data with which to measure women’s contributions in other areas of intellectual property, such as trademarks and copyright. More work is still needed to ensure that both men and women can equally access and use the IP system and profit fully from their creative and innovative assets.
In celebrating women’s achievements in science and innovation, the following women inventors are worthy of recognition. Nancy Johnson invented the hand-cranked ice-cream maker in 1843, and it is still in use today.
Maria Beasley is credited with inventing the life raft in 1882.
Marie Curie isolated radium in 1902 and a year later won the Nobel Prize for her work on the theory of radioactivity. Monopoly was originally patented as The Landlords Game in 1904 by Elizabeth Magie. The game was stolen and sold to the Parker Brothers in 1935. The Parker Brothers tracked down Magie and offered her $500 for it.
Stephanie Kwolek invented Kevlar Fibre in 1965. This material is used in bullet proof vests. It is five times stronger than steel. Shirley Jackson, was the first black woman to get a PhD from MIT in 1973. Her research with subatomic particles led to the invention of portable fax, fibre optic cables and solar cells.
Ann Tsukamoto in 1991 developed the ability to isolate stem cells, which has been vital in medical advancements around cancer treatment.
I conclude this week’s write up by quoting the Director-General of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), Mr. Francis Gurry, who said in his speech commemorating World IP Day, “I call on everyone, everywhere, to ensure that we each do everything in our power to increase the full participation of women in innovation and creativity.
Aleck Ncube is an intellectual property scholar, he can be contacted on Mobile: +263712374408 Skype: Matintas1 Twitter: @aleckncube Alternative E-mail: [email protected]
Online Reporter