The women making what comes next

The popular picture of an inventor is remarkably narrow: a lone genius, a lab and a dramatic breakthrough. Real ideas are often more collaborative. They grow through experiments, failed versions, conversations and the person who sees a problem from a different angle.

In Statistics Canada’s linked patent data, women represented 11.9% of inventors during 2015–2019, up from 10.6% in 2005–2009. This is a measure of people named in patent applications, not a count of every woman who invents, creates or improves something.

The women in that dataset were far from one type of person. In 2019, 44.3% of women inventors were immigrants. More than half of women inventors named on patent applications that year—55.9%—co-patented with others. The familiar image of solitary brilliance misses much of this work.

Many useful ideas will never become patents. They may emerge in a clinic, a classroom, a kitchen, a business or the work of caring for someone. A patent is a particular form of recognition, and access to that process is shaped by opportunities and resources.

The more interesting question may be whose ideas have had a route into the record—and whose ingenuity has helped shape daily life without one.