INTA Research
Shattering Systemic Barriers: How to Advance Gender Diversity in the Intellectual Property Profession
Published: July 24, 2024
In late 2023, INTA convened a diverse project team of INTA members to develop a survey investigating how gender affects the experience of trademark practitioners in the workplace, with a focus on representation, career progression, and work-life integration.
Key motivations behind this research are the need to capture a snapshot of the situation today and to identify, evaluate, and measure efforts underway to improve the situation with the goal of promoting those initiatives that are making strong headway. The intention is that organizations can use this research as a clear benchmark for similar future research.
Shattering Systemic Barriers: How to Advance Gender Diversity in the Intellectual Property Profession assesses and compares the career trajectories of men and women and sheds light on biases that can hold women back and on the implicit and explicit sexism that persists in the industry.
This research and the Report were undertaken in collaboration with World Intellectual Property Review and in accordance with INTA’s 2022–2025 Strategic Plan and its objectives to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) within the global intellectual property (IP) community and beyond, and to recognize, support, and empower all women leaders in IP.
Close to 1,000 respondents from 94 jurisdictions participated in the survey and shared their experiences and perspectives. While nearly 70 percent of survey respondents said that women and men progress along the same or similar paths, many respondents noted that women are held to different standards than their male colleagues.
This research reveals how, while efforts are underway to improve the representation of female practitioners in the IP industry, more needs to be done to combat prejudices faced by women in the workplace and to promote healthy work-life integration.
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Additional Resources
- The Women’s LeadershIP Initiative
- Women Leaders Series: Overcoming the Broken Pipeline (Brand and New, 2024)