Find inspiration from innovative women
Browse Journeys of Innovation articles featuring inspiring female innovators
The USPTO seeks to inspire and encourage diversity and innovation by highlighting women innovators and chronicling their stories. Find inspiration from the journeys of these inventors and entrepreneurs—where they got their start, the challenges they faced, and what it took to bring their ideas to fruition and their brands that impact society to life. These stories also emphasize the importance of creating and protecting intellectual property, and the critical role it plays in innovation.
Browse all stories below, or search for a name or story title.
![A portrait of Maria Telkes superimposed on a background of her patent drawings.](/sites/default/files/styles/joi_rectangle/public/joi0424_new_lede.jpg?itok=QO-6OhWO)
![Woman in blue dress stands in front of a museum display of Gatorade inventor](/sites/default/files/styles/joi_rectangle/public/joi0823_phoebe_cade_banner.jpg?itok=oRXpSG8s)
![Francisco Laboy and Vanessa Carballido, co-founders of Genmoji, standing in front of a backdrop that reads “GES Global Entrepreneurship Summit 2019 United States | The Netherlands.”](/sites/default/files/styles/joi_rectangle/public/joi0723_entrepreneurship-summit.jpg?itok=i7cP-wXC)
![A black and white photograph of a woman and her young son centered on the left and superimposed on top of a 1980s Liquid Paper print advertisement.](/sites/default/files/styles/joi_rectangle/public/joi0423_lp-composite.jpg?itok=ZKcbVXeP)
![Bathed in sunshine, a young girl with a bowl-cut wearing a jeans jumper and socks, cozily curls up on a pillowy, pastel-floral window seat and reads to her doll from a book in her lap. Several additional books whose covers match the doll by her side are strewn about.](/sites/default/files/styles/joi_rectangle/public/first-catalogue-cropped.jpg?itok=8tHC9RqR)
![Three fashionably dressed white women surrounding a desk, posing and admiring posters of Page Boy store fronts](/sites/default/files/styles/joi_rectangle/public/01-main-image_b.jpg?itok=ZhCA-EB5)
![Three women with dark tan skin, brown hair, and long neutral-colored long sleeve tops smiling at a dinner table set with food, wine, and flowers.](/sites/default/files/styles/joi_rectangle/public/thanksgiving.jpg?itok=iMu4Tn0L)
![Tara Astigarraga stands in front of the red and green cliffs of the Grand Canyon, smiling and facing the camera. She wears sunglasses on the top of her head and a gray and white tank top with an outline of the state of Oklahoma and the words “Choctaw” written in cursive.](/sites/default/files/styles/joi_rectangle/public/joi1122-tara_grandcanyon.jpg?itok=6qPWZGi1)
![Daniela Blanco, a brown-haired young Latino woman, wears a white lab coat, safety glasses, and plastic gloves as she stands amid chemistry equipment in a well stocked lab. She pauses her experiment momentarily to smile at the camera.](/sites/default/files/styles/joi_rectangle/public/joi-0922-daniela-lab2-cropped.jpg?itok=qtbH3B-f)
![With a colorful purple buzzcut, tank top, and sunglasses, scientist Natalia Bilenko smiles in the sun and heat as she works alongside others to assemble metal struts and wiring to form the sculpture “Dr.Brainlove.”](/sites/default/files/styles/joi_rectangle/public/joi-0622-5.jpg?itok=ozxaMbRi)
![In a white lab coat, Dr. Patricia Bath smiles into the camera.](/sites/default/files/styles/joi_rectangle/public/joi-bath-main-image1.jpg?itok=3_jwa3NV)
![A middle-aged woman in a silk dress sitting in a chair while examining a typewriter](/sites/default/files/styles/joi_rectangle/public/beulah-henry-typewriter-alt-crop.jpg?itok=ZGjAeAc1)
![Gitanjali Rao presenting at a white board during the 3M competition](/sites/default/files/styles/joi_rectangle/public/joi-rao-cropped-ysc-2017-presentation-2b.jpg?itok=awktrCEF)
![Debbie Sterling and two girls play with GoldieBlox on the floor.](/sites/default/files/styles/joi_rectangle/public/DebbiePlayingToyswithkids_Cropped.jpg?itok=hr2FNYKp)
![Audrey Sherman poses in her stairwell with the plaques she received from 3M for her patents.](/sites/default/files/styles/joi_rectangle/public/Audrey-with-plaques.jpg?itok=NIJ-1vhk)
![Kavita Shukla holding sheets of FreshPaper in a carton that says “fresh for all” at a farmers market in front of a table advertising FreshPaper](/sites/default/files/styles/joi_rectangle/public/dupont-farmers-market-hi-res.jpg?itok=uUDLpPL_)
![Maude Adams wearing a tunic, skirt, sash, and beads stands at three-quarters profile, framed by trees in the background, and looks off to the right.](/sites/default/files/styles/joi_rectangle/public/0_adams_babbie.jpg?itok=EY77Z9G0)
![United States postage stamp showing the trefoil badge and Juliette Gordon Low in a Girl Scout uniform.](/sites/default/files/styles/joi_rectangle/public/2021-02/1_low_postage_stamp.jpg?itok=-vyKL0IY)
![Arlyne Simon stands in front of two body scan images.](/sites/default/files/styles/joi_rectangle/public/New---Arlyne-Simon_PowerPose_00001_cropped.jpg?itok=NwWrn0F7)
![Marissa Streng holds her hands out toward her dog Mojo.](/sites/default/files/styles/joi_rectangle/public/Funderdome-with-Steve-Harvey-2.jpg?itok=UlaesaJ7)
![Headshot of Marian Croak](/sites/default/files/styles/joi_rectangle/public/2020-09/01_marian.jpg?itok=mYKd5yg4)
![Sangeeta Bhatia is pictured in front of a shelf filled with bottles and other lab equipment.](/sites/default/files/styles/joi_rectangle/public/Bhatia_Credit-Scott-Eisen_AP-Images-for-HHMI.jpg?itok=MKypuj9n)
![Portrait of Hinda Miller, Polly Smith, and Lisa Lindahl.](/sites/default/files/styles/joi_rectangle/public/2020-06/20200303_jogbra_024.jpg?itok=GwRh-JQA)
![Martine Rothblatt(excitedly jumping) and the team from Tier one engineering proudly celebrating in front red Electric helicopter that, with the word lung written on it, huge smile, that just set Guinesss World Record being awarded plaque](/sites/default/files/styles/joi_rectangle/public/2020-05/2._unknown-1_copy.jpeg?itok=gipJpV2n)
![Jackie Quinn examines a piece of equipment on the ground with four team members working in the background](/sites/default/files/styles/joi_rectangle/public/2020-03/jsc2009e152930.jpg?itok=I7RqD1Rt)
![Susann Keohane and co-worker at the IBM aging in place environment/lab with the friendly looking Multi-Purpose Eldercare Robot Assistant (IBM MERA), a first of a kind Watson-enabled application designed to aid the elderly and assist caregivers with real-time information about their health.](/sites/default/files/styles/joi_rectangle/public/2020-02/8d_-_aginglabrobot_susann.jpg?itok=qp_1_3eu)
![Image: 1950s KitchenAid illustrated advertisement of a housewife and husband excitedly admiring their new dishwasher. I the top right, dishes magically float from a hospital and industrial dishwasher into their household dishwasher.](/sites/default/files/styles/joi_rectangle/public/2019-09/cochran-home-page.jpg?itok=hCEYgyK5)
![Portrait of Temple Grandin](/sites/default/files/styles/joi_rectangle/public/20181203_grandin_008.jpg?itok=3tSLDfgR)
![Image: Chemist Frances Arnold holds a beaker with yellow liquid up to the light.](/sites/default/files/styles/joi_rectangle/public/2019-09/arnold-home.jpg?itok=l5WtqOVx)
![Image: Irina Buhimschi and Cherry Murray speak on a panel at the US Capitol on empowering women](/sites/default/files/styles/joi_rectangle/public/murray-buhimschi-lead.jpg?itok=Vo5patcz)
![Image: Crops being irrigated in the California Imperial Valley, circa 1919.](/sites/default/files/styles/joi_rectangle/public/imperial_valley_fields.jpg?itok=NpoIgqwo)