The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) hosted the 4th Women and IP Symposium for IP and Innovation Offices from May 11 to 13, 2026, at its headquarters in Geneva and online. The three-day event brought together representatives from over 80 offices worldwide to exchange experience, share practical approaches, and strengthen women’s participation in innovation and intellectual property systems.
Opening the Symposium, Daren Tang, Director General, WIPO, reaffirmed the organization’s commitment to ensuring that women and girls can fully realize their creative and innovative potential.
I think about the women I've encountered through WIPO's work; innovators with real solutions to real challenges, who had never filed for IP protection. At WIPO, we are doing our part by equipping them. We are supporting countries by deepening the data that underpins good policymaking and ensuring IP offices have the resources and tools to create the conditions nationally for women to participate fully in innovation and IP. This work needs to continue at national level.
Daren Tang, Director General, WIPO
A growing momentum for IP Offices
The Symposium brought together 165 participants from over 80 IP offices this year.
Discussions showed growing momentum among IP offices worldwide to identify concrete measures to strengthen women’s participation in innovation and intellectual property systems and to integrate these efforts into institutional policies and national innovation systems, while calling for more coordinated and sustained action.
Lisa Jorgenson, Deputy Director General, WIPO, and the organization's first IP & Gender Champion highlighted the importance of moving toward coherent institutional action.
When the right space, the right tools, and the right connections are in place, conversation becomes action. That is what this Symposium is designed to make possible.
Lisa Jorgenson, Deputy Director General, WIPO
Using data and evidence to strengthen policy
Discussions across the three days consistently showed that sex-disaggregated data is a key driver of policy and institutional transformation. Evidence presented by WIPO and the European Patent Office showed that, despite comparable levels of participation in STEM education, women remain significantly underrepresented in patenting activity.
That evidence becomes most impactful when embedded in institutional frameworks. Across countries, IP offices demonstrated how national strategies and governance structures can translate data into concrete measures. Spain’s Patent and Trademark Office (OEPM) described how a national equality law requiring gender plans for all companies above 50 employees, has contributed to institutional transformation, with women now representing a majority of its workforce and holding a significant proportion of managerial positions.
Expanding knowledge through outreach, education and tools
Participants also heard from WIPO and partners on how targeted outreach, education and community-based tools can help broaden participation in IP systems by making them more accessible, relevant and responsive to women entrepreneurs and young innovators.
WIPO’s first IP Camp for Girls in STEAM in Nigeria introduced girls and young women to IP through real community challenges, where they developed solutions and applied tools such as trademarks, patents, and copyright, culminating in pitching their ideas to mentors and investors. In Uganda, “IP in a Box” uses a game-based format co-created with young entrepreneurs to reflect real local business situations and make IP learning more practical and engaging.
At the same time, strategic foresight tools such as scenarios and megatrends helped IP offices reflect on how these changes may evolve. The discussion highlighted that IP systems must adapt both how they think and how they act, anticipating how technologies like AI could either expand opportunities or reinforce existing inequalities over a 10-year horizon.
The Symposium further looked at the importance of turning commitments into concrete national action. On International Women’s Day 2026, IP offices worldwide supported a Joint Message outlining five joint commitments, which were reviewed and discussed through a structured exercise to identify how they could be advanced regionally and nationally.
Building strong engagement through communication
Communication and sustaining engagement were identified as essential for turning policy into participation. WIPO’s storytelling approach, along with national experiences, showed how personal narratives can make IP more accessible and meaningful.
The Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) demonstrated this through its “Juana Make a Mark” initiative, which has supported more than 8,500 trademark applications from women entrepreneurs since 2019. The initiative uses real success stories to show how IP protection can enable business growth, as illustrated by Rosaline Tan of Pili Ani, whose organic cosmetics brand expanded from a community enterprise into an international market presence through IP protection.
WIPO’s new “IP for Her” platform will offer a sustained community for women entrepreneurs who have engaged in WIPO IP-related activities. It is a global community engagement platform designed to empower women entrepreneurs, innovators and creators who have taken part in WIPO initiatives. The community ensures the sustainability of WIPO-led initiatives and provides access to opportunities and events for networking, training and dialogue on IP.
Financing innovation in a rapidly changing AI-driven landscape
Participants also considered how evolving financing models and the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence are changing the innovation ecosystems, with implications for women founders and inventors.
Keynote speaker Iynna Halilou, a venture capital investor, noted that while the cost of building a company has decreased, the requirements for building a defensible business have increased. She said investors are placing growing emphasis on data advantages, network effects, switching costs and speed of execution, forms of intangible value that extend beyond traditional intellectual property frameworks.
Amaka Okechukwu Oprara of WEAV Capital, Nigeria, highlighted the persistent gender gap in access to capital, including both equity and debt financing. She pointed to gender-smart investment approaches that consider team composition, management structures and women’s inclusion within businesses, while framing gender lens investing as a broader ecosystem question.
Speakers noted that investors are increasingly treating intellectual property as an important factor in investment decisions. IP ownership, protection and commercialization strategy are now frequently examined in investor due diligence, particularly in sectors such as engineering, biotechnology and pharmaceuticals. Strengthening women founders’ understanding and strategic use of IP was identified as an area requiring greater attention from IP offices and support institutions.
Alternative financing mechanisms were also discussed, including debt financing and blended finance, as distinct and often more relevant options for women entrepreneurs. Nigeria's Bank of Industry presented the importance of preparing women-led businesses to become investment-ready through ecosystem partnerships. Businesses supported through this program collectively raised USD 800,000, with concessionary loans provided at rates as low as 5%.
Participants left the Symposium with renewed momentum and concrete ideas for collaboration across IP offices. Several noted that the discussions went beyond general exchanges and began to shape more practical thinking on collective action for a more inclusive IP ecosystem, with particular interest in how AI could be addressed through future cooperation.
WIPO remains committed to supporting IP and innovation offices in strengthening women’s participation in IP ecosystems worldwide through evidence-based policy tools, capacity-building, and continued collaboration. Under its strategy on IP in support of women and girls, the IP and Gender Action Plan, this work focuses on increasing women’s participation in the IP ecosystem by supporting governments and IP offices in addressing structural barriers, strengthening institutional capacity, and creating an enabling environment for women innovators, creators, and entrepreneurs to protect, manage, and commercialize their intellectual property.
The WIPO Women and IP Symposium is held annually in Geneva, both in person and online, and provides a unique platform for intellectual property offices (IPOs) and other innovation-focused government representatives to collaborate on improving women’s participation in innovation and IP.