Officials honored for advancing women in innovation and entrepreneurship
The officials join 13 women previously honored, including Senator Mazie K. Hirono, legal journalist Nina Totenberg and the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
"This selection was natural as Secretary Raimondo and Under Secretary Vidal have worked so closely and so diligently to advance the goal of inclusion in innovation, including gender diversity,” said ChIPs Executive Director Joan Toth.
“Both leaders have advanced a lens for inclusion alongside innovation that proves diversity positively impacts business. Secretary Raimondo is chair of the Council for Inclusive Innovation to help the USPTO build a more diverse and inclusive innovation ecosystem," Toth said. "Under Secretary Vidal has continued her long history of advancing inclusion through various leadership roles — including being a founding advisory board member of ChIPs — through her work at the USPTO.”
Secretary Raimondo said, “I am honored to join the innovators, jurists and policymakers who have received this recognition from ChIPs. As secretary of commerce, I wake up every day thinking about how we can make our country more competitive. That means breaking down systemic barriers holding our workforce back, including the unique challenges that impact women,” she said.
Closing the innovation gap
Kathi Vidal, Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and a former ChIPs advisory board member, has been at the forefront of advancing women in innovation worldwide, Toth said.
During the USPTO’s Women in IP conference last year, Vidal stressed the importance of gender diversity. “There are gender gaps throughout the entire IP system, from STEM education to invention and entrepreneurship and IP legal representation,” she said. “The cost of these gender gaps is high — we know that if women had equal representation within the patent system, we would be talking about increasing our economy by upwards of one trillion dollars.
“When I meet with leaders from across the globe, one common theme in all our work is promoting and supporting more women inventors, entrepreneurs and creators,” Director Vidal said. “Closing the innovation gap is a critical priority for our country — for our ability to put forth solutions that solve problems in communities around the world and for our global competitiveness as an innovation leader. I am proud to be at the forefront of that effort alongside Secretary Raimondo, and I am honored to be inducted into the ChIPs Hall of Fame.”
Toth said, “Recent inclusion efforts by the Commerce Department and USPTO have been unprecedented.” Secretary Raimondo and Under Secretary Vidal co-founded the Women’s Entrepreneurship (WE) program to provide women entrepreneurs advice on how to obtain IP protection and funding. Under their leadership, they released the first-ever National Inclusive Innovation Strategy and first-ever National Entrepreneurship Strategy, with concrete action plans to increase the number of women in innovation and entrepreneurship. Together they have removed barriers to practice before the USPTO, advanced workforce training, and created new opportunities for women, including access to childcare, networking opportunities to connect women with start-up capital, and coaching opportunities for women interested in innovation."
After data showed that women were more likely to abandon their patent applications following a standard rejection of patent claims, the USPTO recently began sending out “Welcome Letters” to all first-time applicants that explained the process and worked to debunk common myths. Earlier this year the USPTO, also called America’s Innovation Agency, created a new Design Patent Practitioner designation, opening the design patent process to people with degrees in industrial design, product design, architecture, applied arts, graphic design, fine/studio arts, and art teacher education. In March, the Commerce Department launched a Women in STEM Ambassadors Program to inspire interest in STEM-related fields and raise awareness about opportunities for women in the semiconductor industry.
“We are proud to recognize the extraordinary leadership of Secretary Raimondo and Undersecretary Vidal and present them with our highest honor,” Toth said. “We look forward to their formal induction during the ChIPs Global Summit, October 16-18, in Washington, D.C., in front of hundreds of ChIPs members.”
ABOUT CHIPS
ChIPs is a nonprofit organization representing more than 7,000 members in 30 regional chapters in North America, Europe, Latin America, Asia-Pacific and Africa. ChIPs advances and connects women in technology, law and policy. It accelerates innovation through diversity of thought, participation and engagement, and is open to all who share its mission.
Olivia Moorer
ChIPs Network Inc.
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