Our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Committee strives to continuously improve equality, diversity and inclusivity in the patent profession.
The committee is dedicated to bringing people together from across the profession (including attorneys, paralegals, and HR professionals) to discuss EDI matters that are of importance and acting where appropriate.
The Committee is made up of various volunteers across the profession and meet once a quarter to build on discussions from previous meetings and to consider new matters that arise. It also aims to work closely with other organisations and learn from their actions to ensure that we are an equal, diverse and inclusive profession.
In 2023, the EDI Committee made progress against a number of goals. Namely, the EDI section on the CIPA website was populated to share news and information with members. This will continue to grow and will hopefully raise more awareness of EDI issues.
Committee members submitted a letter to the European Qualifying Examination (EQE) Secretariat regarding a proposed new format for the EQE. The Committee also made efforts to work with the Informals Committee to ensure they are supported on EDI issues.
An ongoing aim of the committee is to organise EDI happy hour events in 2024, which everyone is welcome to attend!
World IP Day on 26 April 2023 was dedicated to ‘Women and IP: Accelerating innovation and creativity.’ The May CIPA Journal focused on this theme covering topics that included: A spotlight on female inventors; Closing the gender gap for women inventors; and a review of the low number of women inventors.
To celebrate World IP Day CIPA’s podcast hosts sat down with founder and CEO of the The Global Women Inventors & Innovators Network, Dr Bola Olabisi on how the network supports female innovators. A second podcast discussed female-centered innovation with Vandita Chandrani, Associate General Counsel IP at radiotherapy pioneers Elekta.