Aspiring Women Inventors Still Stalled by University Patriarchy

Pamela Silver is one of the most heralded American bioengineers of her generation, showered with prestigious awards, titles, and grants during an industry-shaking career spanning more than 40 years. Among those accomplishments are 20 patents in her name, including a method for fixing carbon using bacteria, and technology to make sustainable biomolecules.

But when Silver was a Ph.D. student at UCLA in the early 1980s, she had no idea how to file a patent. Despite her seemingly endless aptitude for math and science, no one showed Silver how to protect her research through the deeply bureaucratic system of patent submissions. ...