This year's World IP Day theme, "Powering Change: Women and Innovation and Creativity," celebrates the ingenuity and importance of the women who are driving change and creating a better future across the world. To help celebrate this year's theme, IP Osgoode will be featuring a Q&A series with female entrepreneurs from the Innovation Clinic. In the days leading up to World IP Day on April 26, the Q&A series will not only showcase the entrepreneurs' innovative ideas and creativity but also their perspectives on navigating the IP commercialization process.

Encouraging and empowering female entrepreneurs to succeed in the IP system is paramount.   Analysis by the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) finds that the number of Canadian inventors filing via the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) is growing at a rate higher than Canadian men (from 1997 to 2015, the number of Canadian women named on PCT applications grew by 377%, compared to 285% for Canadian men). However, Canadian female inventors only made up 12% of Canadian PCT applications, a number that is persistently lower than the number of Canadian women working in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields. Internationally, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) anticipates that gender parity in the PCT system will not be achieved until 2076.  This year’s World IP Day theme is an ideal opportunity to examine why this disconnect exists and how to overcome it.

The IP Osgoode Q&A series also features Innovation Clinic founder & director, Prof. Giuseppina D'Agostino and legal supervisor, Maya Medeiros, a partner at Norton Rose Fulbright LLP , who will offer their insights on how the IP system can support innovative and creative women in their quest to bring their amazing ideas to market.

We hope you enjoy and check back soon!