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Some preliminary data on gender inequality in patent litigation at the Federal Circuit. 1/7
A little over 800 oral arguments were presented in Federal Circuit patent cases decided in 2017. Female lawyers gave 86 of those arguments, barely 10%. 2/7
Counting by unique lawyers (rather than total arguments) provides about the same result: a little less than 10% women. 3/7
But note that the seven women with the most oral arguments all worked for the federal government, either the PTO or ITC. 4/7
When you remove government lawyers from the data, it gets even bleaker. Only 6.4% of oral arguments were presented by women. 5/7
Counting by unique lawyers again gives roughly the same result (7.3%). 6/7
Lots you could say about this. I'll add only that 5 of the Fed Cir's 12 active judges are women. So, women are litigating patent cases for the gov't and deciding patent cases as judges. But vanishingly few are getting stand up opportunities in private practice. 7/7
