Welcome back to another week of Bells & Whistles.
As always, we’ve rounded up a mix of developments, opportunities, and thoughtful reads from across the IP world along with a Bell of the Week that’s well worth revisiting.
Bell of the Week: Who Gets Counted as an Inventor?
When we think about the history of invention, we often think of the people whose names have become synonymous with a particular discovery or technology. But how much of this history do we actually know about the women who have contributed to innovation? And, perhaps more importantly, how much of it have we been able to record?
This question becomes particularly interesting when we look at patent records. Patents give us a way of tracing inventions, identifying inventors and understanding how innovation has evolved over time. Yet, they do not always tell us the whole story of who has been participating in this process.
A recent study by Neha Raghuwanshi and Madan Dhanora, Female Participation in the Indian Innovation Ecosystem: Stylized Facts from Patent Data, attempts to fill one part of this gap. Looking at 329,034 patents granted in India between 1995 and 2023, and over one million inventors, the researchers reconstructed gender data using inventor names and gender-identification tools. This was necessary because historical Indian patent records did not systematically capture the gender of inventors.
The findings make for interesting reading. Women’s participation in Indian patenting has increased over time, but the growth has been uneven. Women are more represented in chemistry and life-science technologies, while engineering-intensive fields and patents associated with firms continue to show lower gender diversity.
This is not just an Indian concern. A 2023 WIPO study examining international patent applications between 1999 and 2020 found that women accounted for only 13% of all listed inventors. Their participation also varied considerably across regions and technological fields.
What I find particularly interesting is the question of what these numbers can, and cannot, tell us. Patent records offer an important window into inventive activity, but they are not a complete account of innovation. They tell us who has been formally named as an inventor in a patent, not necessarily everyone who contributed to the research, development or making of an invention. And when gender itself has not been systematically recorded, reconstructing this history becomes even more difficult.
This brings us to a larger question: if we cannot adequately identify who has been participating in innovation, how do we begin to understand who has been left out of it? Better data may not solve the problem of unequal participation, but it can help us see where the gaps are, how they have changed and what might need to be addressed.
I also think this is an interesting reminder that patent history is not just about inventions and the legal rights granted over them. It is also about the people whose contributions get recorded, recognised and remembered.
This week, we ring the bell for the researchers working to make women’s participation in innovation more visible, and for reminding us that sometimes, before we can change the story, we need to get better at counting who is in it.
EVENTS
1. WIPO Webinar: Global IP Databases in the AI Era – Opportunities and Challenges
13 November 2026 | 2 PM CET | Online
The webinar will be held by Ms. Sandrine Ammann, Marketing and Communications Officer, Global Databases Division, Infrastructure and Platforms Sector, WIPO as part of the ‘Ask the Expert’ series of 2026 with the theme of Artificial Intelligence in the knowledge economy.
Join here
2. WIPO Report Launch Webinar: Innovation, Intellectual Property and Technologies for Addressing Antimicrobial Resistance in Wastewater
17 November 2026 | 2–4:30 PM Geneva time | Virtual
WIPO is organising a webinar to launch its new report, Innovation, Intellectual Property and Technologies for Addressing Antimicrobial Resistance in Wastewater, developed in collaboration with the AMR Industry Alliance, ARIES Institute Brazil and the East, Central and Southern African Health Community. The webinar will examine how innovation, technology and intellectual property can support efforts to address antimicrobial resistance (AMR) risks in wastewater. Discussions will cover wastewater surveillance and management, innovation trends, IP and technology transfer, technologies for detecting and managing AMR, and regional and national perspectives on technology adoption, capacity building and scaling.
More info
OPPORTUNITIES
1. 2026 Shamnad Basheer Essay Competition on Intellectual Property Law
Submission Deadline: 30 December 2026 | 11:59 PM
SpicyIP invites original essays on any topic relating to intellectual property law, particularly those engaging with contemporary IP challenges and reflecting the intellectual values of Prof. Shamnad Basheer. The competition is open to students enrolled in an LL.B. or equivalent programme worldwide, as well as those who completed their first law degree in 2024 or later. Submissions must be single-authored, unpublished and within 5,000 words, inclusive of footnotes.
More info
2. Call for Contributions: GenAI and the Future of (International) Legal Scholarship
Submission: Ongoing call
Völkerrechtsblog invites short contributions exploring how generative AI is changing legal scholarship, including research, writing, peer review and teaching. Suggested themes include the relationship between writing and thinking with AI, authorship and originality, academic integrity, AI and censorship, the future of scholarly exchange, and the political economy of AI.
More info
3. Call for Papers: BILETA 2027 – Law and Technology in Uncertain Times
Abstract Deadline: 13 November 2026
The British and Irish Law, Education and Technology Association (BILETA) invites abstracts for its 2027 Annual Conference, themed “Law and Technology in Uncertain Times.” The hybrid conference welcomes contributions from academics, researchers, practitioners, postgraduate students, policymakers and others interested in technology and law. Topics include AI and algorithmic uncertainty, digital governance, privacy, intellectual property in digital and AI contexts, cybersecurity, human rights, legal education and emerging technologies.
More info
4. INTA 2027 Asia-Pacific Moot Court Competition
Team Registration Deadline: 15 November 2026 | 5 PM ET
The International Trademark Association (INTA) invites teams of law students from the Asia-Pacific region to participate in its 2027 Asia-Pacific Moot Court Competition, focusing on international trademark and unfair competition law. Teams will submit written arguments based on a fictional moot problem and present their arguments in person before a panel of volunteer attorneys and judges. Each team must comprise two to four students from the same law school, and only one team per school may participate.
More info
5. CUHK LAW PhD in Laws Programme 2027–28
Application Deadline: 1 December 2026, 11:59 PM Hong Kong time | Clearing Round: 31 March 2027
The Faculty of Law at The Chinese University of Hong Kong invites applications for its Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Laws Programme for the 2027–28 academic year. The programme is intended for candidates aspiring to careers in legal academia and requires the completion of a dissertation making a significant contribution to legal scholarship under the supervision of CUHK faculty members. Applicants may apply through the Hong Kong PhD Fellowship Scheme (HKPFS), with an initial application to the Research Grants Council.
More info
Shout out to Malobika, Prof Aakanksha Kumar and Swaraj for the leads!
All non-sponsored listings featured here are events or opportunities free or nominally charged and ones we think our readers may be interested in. Sponsored listings will be marked as such. Unless specifically mentioned, SpicyIP has no affiliation to anything listed here. Know of an event worth sharing? Write to us at contact[at]spicyip[dot]com.