Independent inventors in Italy: The role of sex and age in career development

Independent inventors are considered important contributors to technological progress. However, empirical studies on individuals who retain the intellectual property rights in patented inventions are relatively scarce. This work analyzes a sample of more than 20k inventors who debuted between 1994 and 2017 and who filed at least one patent at the Italian Patent Office (UIBM) as independent: i.e., they were also the applicant/assignee. UIBM reports independent inventors’ national tax IDs, which allow identification of sex, date of birth, and place of birth. Inventors’ patent portfolios are reconstructed using their names and through filtering criteria to reduce the presence of false positives and negatives. The analyses confirm the presence of female underrepresentation (slowly declining), and sex-related differences in mean age and age distribution at the patenting debut. The dynamic process from independent to organizational inventor is then examined. Results of the survival analyses suggest that, ceteris paribus, female inventors are less likely to become organizational inventors than their male counterparts, while the role of age is negligible. However, within the subsample of inventors becoming organizational, female innovators transition more quickly, suggesting a potential selection effect that excludes many female patentees from pursuing their careers.