USPTO Symposium: Advancing research on inventor demographics

Overview

Understanding the demographic makeup of inventors who apply for patents is a critical first step for characterizing who participates in the intellectual property ecosystem and for identifying policies that will expand participation. The USPTO organized a one-day symposium that brought together economists, computer scientists, and others to discuss research methods, applied examples, and new ideas.

The symposium endeavored to:

• Provide an overview of current approaches from leading scholars in the field,
• Build knowledge,
• Identify a community of practitioners, and
• Facilitate the application of common approaches.

This symposium discussions will be of interest to researchers engaged in inventor demographics based on administrative and other records. There was no charge to attend, but registration in advance was required,

Organization

The symposium was structured as one full-day session on August 26, 2022. Each session speaker is identified below, including a biography and relevant articles, sites, or publications from the speaker.

The symposium agenda is linked here for a layout of the event. Session recordings and presentation slides are linked below.