Closing the gender health gap: patenting trends in women’s health

Medical research into women's health is rapidly expanding, with investment into female-owned and female-focused companies rising year on year. This wave of innovation has led to a marked increase in patent filings in the women’s health space, with applicants seeking protection for female-specific innovations ranging from consumer products to surgical instruments and diagnostic tools. In this article, we examine trends in the patenting of female-specific inventions and consider progress towards gender parity among inventors named on patent applications.

The patenting landscape

The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO)’s International Patent Classification (IPC) system offers a helpful window into understanding the patenting landscape in women’s health. While the IPC system assigns patents to one or more categories, no single IPC code captures all innovations in women's health or FemTech. To build a picture of patenting in this space, we identified 23 IPC codes relevant to women's health, such as A61F 13/145: (bandages or dressings; absorbent pads) specifically adapted for the female anatomy and A61B 5/4337: (measuring for diagnostic purposes; identification of persons) of the vagina (the full list can be found at the end of this article). For each code, we recorded the number of patents published annually from 2005 to 2024.

Encouragingly, the data revealed a clear upwards trend in the publication of patents related to women's health. In 2005, 264 patents were published across these codes, increasing almost threefold to 748 in 2024. The total number of publications rose steadily to a peak of 947 in 2022, before experiencing a slight decline in recent years.

However, this small dip in publications since 2022 does not necessarily indicate a loss of momentum in women’s health and FemTech innovation. The fluctuations in patent publications relating to women’s health may in fact reflect broader trends in patenting activity across the medical sector as a whole¹, as well as the residual effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. Promisingly, many of the IPC codes relating to women’s health saw increased publication numbers in 2024. For instance, A61B 5/4343 Measuring for diagnostic purposes; identification of persons; pregnancy and labour monitoring increased from 47 publications in 2021 to 57 in 2024. Going forward, continued innovation and investment in women’s health should enable patenting activity to soon return to, and hopefully exceed, 2022 levels.

Female representation among patent inventors

Alongside the overall growth of patent publications relating to women’s health, the proportion of women named as inventors on European patent filings has also been rising. Daye, a UK-based start-up focusing on gynaecological health, offers a positive example of this trend, with its female founder and CEO named on its key patent publications for menstrual innovations, which include a cannabinoid-coated tampon for menstrual symptom relief², and a tampon and kit designed for microbiome sampling to detect various gynaecological infections³.

According to the European Patent Office (EPO), 25% of all patent applications filed at the EPO by European applicants in 2024 named at least one woman as an inventor⁴. While this represents a small drop from 27% in 2023⁵, it is still a marked increase from just 2% in the late 1970s and 13% in 2019⁶

The proportion of female inventors varies significantly depending on the country, with Spain (42%), Belgium (32%) and France (31%) topping the list among the larger European patent filing countries in 2024. At the other end of the scale, only 18% of Austrian applications and 20% of German applications included a female inventor. Sectoral differences are also significant, with the average share of patent applications naming at least one woman as inventor ranging from 17% in mechanical engineering to 47% in chemistry.

Given that women accounted for 52% of those employed in science and technology in the EU in 2023⁷, gender parity in patenting activity remains some way off being realised. However, the upwards trajectory in the proportion of female inventors over recent decades leaves reason to be cautiously optimistic.

Looking ahead

The growth of patenting activity in the women’s health space reflects the broader sense that the sector is gaining long-overdue traction among innovators and investors alike. While patent publications relating to women’s health seem to have slightly dipped in number since 2022, signs of recovery in 2024 suggest that momentum in women’s health innovation and FemTech remains strong. At the same time, the growing proportion of women named as inventors on patent applications signals meaningful progress towards gender balance in R&D, even if full gender parity is still some way off.

Nevertheless, it is important to recognise that patent statistics only provide a partial view of the women’s health sector as the measure of progress clearly depends heavily on regulatory approvals, market adoption and real-world health outcomes. Furthermore, many innovations are not patented at all and innovation can be incentivised in other ways. For example, UNICEF’s FemTech initiative provides equity-free funding to early-stage startups developing solutions that address the unique health and socio-economic challenges faced by women and girls. In return for UNICEF funding, the technology must be licensed on an open-source basis, with the aim of promoting global accessibility to quality healthcare and services, especially in low-resource settings.

As investment in female-focused research continues to increase, the coming years hold strong potential for women’s health innovation making tangible advancements in closing the long-standing gender gap in healthcare. For patenting, the challenge now is to sustain the upward trajectory in filings, while ensuring that innovation in women’s health is accompanied by representation in patent inventorship.

We would like to thank Soraya Gajra, Gabriela Swiderska and Olivia Nichol for their valuable contributions to the preparation of this article.

Annex:

IPC codes included in the analysis:

Footnotes:

• [1] https://www.euronews.com/health/2025/03/26/europe-faces-innovation-slowdown-as-medical-and-pharma-patents-decline?utm_source=chatgpt.com
• [2] https://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/biblio?CC=GB&NR=2591371B&KC=B&FT=D&ND=4&date=20221102&DB=EPODOC&locale=en_EP , https://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/biblio?CC=EP&NR=4026526B1&KC=B1&FT=D&ND=4&date=20250305&DB=EPODOC&locale=en_EP 
• [3] https://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/biblio?CC=EP&NR=3989838A1&KC=A1&FT=D&ND=4&date=20220504&DB=EPODOC&locale=en_EP
• [4] https://www.epo.org/en/about-us/statistics/patent-index-2024/statistics-and-indicators/applicants/women-inventors
• [5] https://www.epo.org/en/about-us/statistics/patent-index-2023/statistics-and-indicators/applicants/women-inventors
• [6] EPO’s report on Women’s participation in inventive activity (November 2022), available here: https://www.epo.org/en/news-events/news/fewer-1-7-inventors-europe-are-women (p.9)
• [7] Eurstostat article ‘Women make up 52% of science & technology employment’ (June 2024), available here: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/w/ddn-20240613-2