NAWBO National Hails U.S House Passage of SUCCESS Act

Washington, D.C. —The National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO) is expressing their support for the SUCCESS Act, which was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives last week.

The bi-partisan legislation sets out to understand and address the underrepresentation of women and minorities in the patent process and to identify best practices to close the gaps in patent rates for women and other underrepresented groups.

“Today we see that not enough women and minorities are pursuing the patent process most likely due to the expensive and cumbersome nature of obtaining and maintaining a patent,” says Molly Gimmel, NAWBO National Board Chair.  “We applaud the U.S. House for passing the SUCCESS Act which takes the important first step of understanding what barriers exist in the process and what can be done to ensure that more women feel comfortable pursuing the patents they need to start, scale and eventually successfully sell their business.”

According to Yale University, in the United States, women earn half of the doctoral degrees in science and engineering.  But when it comes to patenting their inventions, they trail far behind men: Only 10% of patent-holders are women.

NAWBO National was founded in 1975 to serve as the first advocacy organization for all women business owners.  Now women own more than 10 million businesses accounting for nearly $1.7T in sales and employing more than 8 million.
 

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About NAWBO

Founded in 1975, NAWBO is the unified voice of America's more than 10 million women-owned businesses representing the fastest growing segment of the economy. NAWBO is the only dues-based organization representing the interests of all women entrepreneurs across all industries.  NAWBO develops programs that help navigate women entrepreneurs through the various stages of their business growth.

To learn more, please visit www.nawbo.org