Around 2015, I excitedly downloaded iDiversicons on my iphone 5. The $0.99 app, invented by a Black woman named Katrina Parrott, let me choose emojis with diverse skin tones for the first time ever. While it seems like a no-brainer today, it was IMPOSSIBLE to find inclusive emojis back then. 🤦🏾♀️
As a consumer, I felt seen. I didn’t know who had come up with this brilliant idea, but I assumed a person of color stepped in to fill the obvious gap. 🦸🏾♀️
As a young-ish patent attorney, I hoped the inventor would be rolling in licensing deals, royalties, and/or dope new opportunities. 👏🏾
However, I was disappointed to learn that Ms. Parrott never got any deals or real recognition.
Diverse Emojis: From Ignored to Celebrated
Ms. Parrott invented iDiversicons in 2013 after her school-age daughter complained about not having any emojis that looked like her. The software-based solution cost her +$200,000, but the app quickly grew in popularity. 📈
So much so that when the tech industry learned about iDiversicons in 2014, they excitedly invited Ms. Parrott to participate in the Unicode Consortium, a group that promotes and develops international standards for software like emojis. 👥
Its members include tech giants like Apple, Google, Amazon, and Netflix. Many were at the consortium gatherings, but diverse emojis apparently weren’t a hot topic until Ms. Parrott came along. 🧑🏾💻
No IP, No Opportunity
Ultimately, Ms. Parrott got a meeting with Apple in October 2014, but the company rejected her pitch. By April 2015, however, Apple had released its first set of diverse emoji. 👧👧🏻👧🏼👧🏽👧🏾👧🏿
Ironic.🫤
Around the same time, Ms. Parrott tried to get a patent from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)–the only office in America that grants patents. A patent would have given her exclusive rights to make, use, sell, and offer her product for sale for 20 years. This would also allow her to charge higher prices, pursue licensing deals, get royalties, and stop copycats. 🤚🏾
But, after 5 years of back and forth, the patent office rejected Ms. Parrott’s application and appeals. She eventually sued Apple, but the lawsuit was also thrown out.🙅🏾♀️
There’s a lot to say here about timing and pitching ideas before they’re protected, while pursuing protection, and afterward. And I’ll definitely talk about that….later. 👋🏾
Who gets the most out of the American patent system?
Today, the glaring issue for me is that the intellectual property system–especially the patent system–doesn’t always work for a person or company who is not big, rich, male, and/or white. 💰
Unfortunately, Ms. Parrott’s experience at the USPTO isn’t surprising. While about 70-80% of patent applications have been approved each year for the past decade, it’s much harder for small businesses, women, and people of color. The data shows that:
- 👎🏾small businesses have lower patent success rates than big companies
- 👎🏾women inventors have their patent applications approved less than men, and
- 👎🏾POC inventors are less likely to receive patents than white inventors.
There are probably many reasons for these results. Some of them manifest long before a patent applicant arrives at the USPTO. Even so, the USPTO is an ideal place to collect data demonstrating the impact of systemic financial, socioeconomic and demographic disparity.
Until recently, the USPTO did not even try to collect applicant identity or diveristy data. But, many people are demanding greater transparency and asking the office to do more. ✊🏾
On February 14, 2023, for example, Senator Elizabeth Warren and Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee wrote a letter to the patent office. In it, they push for greater transparency about these patenting issues. I got tagged in social media posts about it because, to my surprise, the letter’s first sentence cited my work, The Colorblind Patent System and Black Inventors! 👩🏾🏫
Also to my delight, the letter applies. that. pressure. They ask important and relevant questions about demographic data, money, internal procedures, and more. 🙌🏾
I don’t know whether the USPTO replied, but these questions, especially the ones about data, get to (at least some of) the roots of the problem. 👍🏾
Some people think the USPTO is being treated as a scapegoat. 🐐
I don’t. For all it’s flaws, the office can and should be a gateway to innovation and successful entrepreneurship. It’s past time that America grant all inventors the same access to that system. 🤝🏾
Read the full letter below.