Patent grants and gender bias

Spotted via Colleen Chien, on patents and gender bias:

The researchers found that women inventors with common names had an 8.2% lower chance of getting their patents approved. But the difference in probability of approval fell to 2.8% for those with rare names, where it would be tougher for an examiner to guess the applicant’s gender.

When it came to future citations, patents that listed common female names were cited 30% less frequently than those held by people with common male names. That disparity did not simply vanish for women with rare names; it actually reversed. Their patents were cited approximately 20% more frequently than patents listing rare male names.