The number of women who are filing and receiving patents has been steadily growing since the Patent Act of 1790. In fact, according to a new study by the National Women’s Business Council (NWBC.gov) in 2010, there was a 35% increase in patents received by women over the previous year! This is an unprecedented leap over increase in patents held by 
women in the past, which generally fluctuates between 5-10%.
Female innovators are nothing new—throughout history we’ve witnessed some of the most ingenious innovations come from the minds of women. However, the increase in patents filed by women signifies a higher participation in start-ups and revenue creation which should be celebrated during Women’s History Month. The following is a brief timeline of female innovators that have improved our lives during the 20th and 21st centuries.
1930: Ruth Wakefield
Ruth Wakefield was a dietitian by trade before she bought a toll house outside of Boston. Wakefield and her husband converted the toll house into an inn and restaurant. In 1930, while experimenting with an old recipe, Wakefield added pieces of a Nestle chocolate bar into the batter and the rest is history! Although she never applied for a patent, at Wakefield’s suggestion, Nestle began scoring their chocolate to make it easier for people to add it to cookies. In exchange, she received free chocolate for life!
1942: Hedy Lamar
Austrian actress Hedy Lamarr was mostly known for her movies, but when WWII threatened her new country, she was determined to help. Although she knew little about electronics, she came up with an idea for preventing messages from being read by the Nazis. Along with co-inventor George Anthiel, she developed a way to manipulate radio frequencies at irregular intervals between transmission and reception, eventually being awarded a US patent for her efforts.
1949: Marion Donovan
In 1946, Marion Donovan created the “Boater,” a plastic cover fashioned from her shower curtains and meant to be worn around a cloth diaper. She also replaced the safety pins commonly used on diapers with snap fasteners. First sold in 1949 at the Saks flagship store in New York City, patents were issued two years later, in 1951. Unlike the rubber baby pants that were currently in use, Donovan’s Boaters avoided diaper rash and were safer than standard diapers.
1957: Rachel Fuller Brown & Elizabeth Lee Hazen
Brown and Hazen collaborated on the first successful fungus-fighting drug, which has implications from curing topical fungal infections to killing fungus on priceless artwork. Theirs was a long-distance relationship which consisted of sending soil samples back-and-forth between Albany and New York City. They named the compound “Nystatin” after New York State.
1958: Bette Nesmith Graham
Bette Nesmith Graham was a high school dropout who created one of the most useful products to compliment the newly invented electric typewriter. Since the new model’s carbon ribbon made it impossible to correct errors, secretaries would often spend hours re-typing pages that contained one or two typos. Inspired by how window display painters would simply pain over their errors, she created a mixture using her blender to combine a water-based tempera paint with dye that matched her company’s stationary. Hilariously, her product was in such demand that Graham was fired for distributing “Mistake Out.” This unemployment was a boon as she was able to perfect her mixture and renamed the product Liquid Paper. She received her patent in 1958.
1964: Stephanie Kwolek
Stephanie Kwolek majored in chemistry and minored in biology at Carnegie-Mellon University. When she joined DuPont in 1946, her work focused on finding polymers that could be spun into fibers to create new textures for clothing and other uses. In 1964, when her work shifted to extra strong and stable polymers, it yielded fibers which were stronger than steel! Kwolek had stumbled onto Kevlar, which today is found in everything from bullet-proof vests, ropes and a variety of other devices. Kwolek was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1995.
1978: Barbara Askins
Barbara Askins wanted to find a way to improve the clarity of photographs taken from space that were often fuzzy. Instead of taking the logical path of improving the camera lens, she took another approach. Using her knowledge of chemistry (she obtained a bachelor’s and master’s degree in chemistry after having two children), she used radioactive materials to enhance negatives after they were already shot and was granted U.S. Patent No. 4,101,780. Her idea also proved useful in restoring old photographs and making X-rays easier to read. For her efforts, she was awarded the National Inventor of the Year in 1978.
2005: Anja Metzger
When Dr. Keith Lurie invented a way to help rescue those experiencing a heart attack using a suction method on the chest, he needed a team to help find a way to lift a person’s chest to increase circulation when performing CPR. Anja Metzger joined the team and spurred an invention to not only lift up on a person’s chest, but to signal to a rescuer exactly when to perform chest compressions. This has been called the greatest innovation in cardiac treatment since the defibrillator.
2011: Anke Domaske, 2011
Twenty-eight year old biochemist and fashion guru Anke Domaske has created a new fabric made from milk protein called Qmilch which is both silky and produced without the use of pesticides or harmful chemicals. The current textile industry uses fabrics which severely tax our natural resources and create a great deal of harmful runoff. Anke Domaske has invented an organic, hypoallergenic fabric that is both environmentally conscientious, and looks great on the runway!
2011: Danielle Fong
Danielle Fong, is the founder and head scientist for a company called LightSail Energy, which focused on storing energy created by intermittent sources (ie wind and light). Her plan transfers the energy created by wind and solar power into compressed in which is later expanded—when there’s no wind or solar power—to drive turbines that provide energy to a power grid. Interestingly enough, Fong is only 24, but has a resume to rival that of a scientist twice her age.
