Women, Patents, and Startups in Israel: What a New Survey Reveals About Barriers, Funding, and Intellectual Property Strategy

Women in the Patent System: The Gap Behind Israeli Innovation

Israel is rightly known as the “Startup Nation,” yet its technological success is not shared equally. Women remain underrepresented among inventors and patent holders, despite their growing presence in science, technology, and entrepreneurship. Previous research has shown that intellectual property registration systems are not merely technical mechanisms: they may function as gatekeepers, shaping who is able to transform knowledge and inventions into legal and economic assets. Against this background, the current survey examines not only who holds patents, but also how Israeli startups make decisions about patenting, the barriers they encounter, and whether women and men experience the patent system and the funding environment differently.

The Study in Brief: Who Participated and What the Full Sample Revealed

The survey was conducted in Hebrew between January and March 2025 among founders, CEOs, and CTOs of Israeli startups. The findings indicate that the composition of a company’s technical workforce was the strongest predictor of patent ownership: the higher the proportion of engineers and scientists, the more likely the company was to hold patents. Industry also mattered, with patent ownership substantially more common in health sciences, hardware, and robotics than in software. Annual revenue, by contrast, did not predict patent ownership. These findings suggest that the use of patents depends not only on a company’s financial resources, but also on the nature of its technology, the organization of knowledge, and its intellectual property strategy. Cost barriers were also widespread, including not only filing fees, but also drafting, legal advice, international filings, renewal fees, and especially enforcement costs. Reducing filing fees alone, therefore, is unlikely to address the broader challenges posed by a patent system that can be costly, complex, and unpredictable.

The Gender Finding: Similarities in Innovation, a Gap in Translating Engagement into Funding

The most important gender-related finding concerns what the survey did not find: women and men did not differ significantly in patent ownership, innovation strategy, exit strategy preferences, or reported barriers to patenting. The findings therefore do not support the view that women entrepreneurs are less innovative, less interested in intellectual property, or inherently less likely to use patents. A notable difference did emerge, however, at the funding stage. Women reported greater engagement with institutional funding sources, including venture capital funds, corporate investors, and banks, during negotiations, yet this engagement did not translate into higher rates of securing funding. The data therefore point not to less initiative on the part of women, but to a possible gap between entering the funding process and succeeding in it. This shifts the focus from the question, “Do women ask?” to the more significant question, “What happens after they do?”

Policy Recommendations

If women in the sample are neither less innovative nor less inclined to pursue patents, yet their engagement with funding does not translate into comparable outcomes, policies aimed at promoting women’s entrepreneurship should not focus solely on “fixing” the entrepreneur. Instead, attention should be directed toward the institutional transition points that determine who reaches investors, how ventures are evaluated, who receives professional guidance on intellectual property, and who can bear the costs of patent registration and enforcement. More broadly, the survey delivers a dual message. First, patents are strategic tools whose use depends on technology, industry, and organizational structure far more than on revenue alone. Second, the gender findings challenge the simple narrative that women patent less because they are less innovative or less interested in protecting their inventions. The data instead direct attention to the institutions that translate innovation into rights, capital, and growth. If Israel seeks to realize its full innovative potential, the question is not only how many patents are registered, but also who is able to access them, finance them, and derive value from them.

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Professor Miriam Marcowitz-Bitton, Full Professor and holder of the Raoul Wallenberg Chair in Human Rights, Faculty of Law, Bar-Ilan University.