What do clients presume about women in intellectual property? Voices from Australia and New Zealand

This article examines the negative presumptions that women who practise in intellectual property (IP) face vis-à-vis their clients. Analysing interviews with 107 practitioners, the research shows that it is particularly women who work at the interface between law and science and engineering who appear to face the most bias. Women working in patents spoke about negative presumptions more than women in trade marks or copyright. We attribute this to a convergence of biases against women in law and women in science/engineering in patent practice. Moreover, within patent practice, women in engineering and physics spoke about negative presumptions from clients more than women in chemistry, or women in biotechnology and biochemistry. This positively correlates to the degree to which those areas of science/engineering are dominated by men. The article concludes with arguments that it is important to address biases against women in IP, as these biases can affect whether they remain in IP practice, and ultimately what gains IP protection and what is innovated.