+ Patent & Trade Marks Attorney & Lawyer
+ Biochemist
+ Wine Connoisseur & Collector
What drew you to study STEM?
I did very well in science and maths at high school in the seventies and had good results. At that stage, my plan was to study medicine, but at the time there was only one medical school in Western Australia, and the intake of students was very small for the whole of WA and I did not get in. I initially enrolled in a Bachelor of Science at the University of Western Australia (UWA) with a view to then moving into medicine but ended up continuing with science, focusing on biochemistry. For my honours degree project, I worked in the area of human lactation looking at fat and fatty acid synthesis in early lactation. I used to go to the King Edward Memorial Hospital for Women in Perth and ask new mothers to help me in my research by expressing milk at various times during the day before and after a feed, and then I would take the samples back to UWA to analyse.
Was working in IP always part of your career plan, or was it something that presented to you during your journey?
No, never. I was one of four people who finished with an honour’s degree in biochemistry from the UWA that year, and although I had a very good honours degree, Australia was in the grip of a bad recession at the time and there were no jobs in biochemical research. I was effectively unemployed for one year, and during that year I enrolled in a Bachelor of Arts degree and I studied literature in order to occupy my mind.
During that time, I continued to look for work in research, and after a year, I was lucky to get a position at Murdoch University as a Research Assistant, working in the area of iron levels in lamprey eels. I worked there for two and a half years, but it was not permanent. I was always on a short contract subject to grant money, and when that finally ran out I had to start looking for another job. Because of this, I then started looking for anything that needed a science qualification. I saw an advert one day in the local papers for Wrays, who was looking for a biochemist to join the firm as a Technical Assistant. I’d heard of patents, but I didn’t know what it was all about.
I joined Wrays in 1987, and for a year, I did nothing but patent, design and trade mark searching, day in day out. In those days searching was all done manually, there was nothing online, so I’d spend my whole day in the Patent Office.
So no, I had no intention of working in IP at all. I never knew about it until then!
Which women leaders did you look up to as you were growing up and why?
In those days there weren’t many women in positions of management in Australia. I remember Ita Buttrose though. I loved Ita. She had started ‘Cleo’, one of the magazines young women and girls used to buy in the 70s and 80s to be cool and learn about ‘stuff’. She went onto be the editor of the highly respected magazine ‘Women’s Weekly’. I do remember Margaret Thatcher and the Queen as being women in strong roles.
Who do you look up to now and why?
In comparison, nowadays there are so many women to look up to in various industries and in politics, First and foremost, I respect many of my peers, even those who work in competing firms. Things have completely changed from how things were when I initially joined the profession many years ago. When I joined Wrays, there wasn’t another female professional at the firm, I was the only one. At that time, there were just female support staff, the professional men, and me.
We’re talking about a time where the IP industry was very male-dominated, with very few women in the profession. I was also the first women to be registered as a patent attorney in the firm.
As an example of how far we’ve come since then, I used to wear trousers (stirrup pants to be exact, as it was the eighties!) to the office regularly and I made an observation one day that none of the other women wore trousers. When I asked why I was told they were not allowed to because they were women and support staff. However, the rules were different for me because I was a ‘professional’. I thought this was very unfair so I campaigned for the women and won them the right to wear trousers in the office. I must say, that was one of my best achievements at Wrays.
How does your science degree benefit you in your role as a patent attorney?
A science or engineering qualification is a prerequisite in order to be registered as a patent attorney but I find that I’m able to think outside the square, compared to non-STEM-based professionals. I can think about innovation more laterally and come up readily with new solutions. I also find that I’m often a few steps ahead of others in my thinking.
What role do you think we all need to play in supporting a greater uptake of women in STEM?
I think there would be a greater uptake of women in STEM if there was a better understanding of the range of career paths STEM qualifications can lead to, along with more job certainty. I think that’s what’s lacking in STEM, is a clear career path to a secure well-paid job.
From the outside, it often seems the options for women in STEM are to work as a researcher or maybe a teacher. We need to educate girls of the variety of career paths available through STEM.
Is there any advice you would like to share with women embarking on a STEM career?
Science broadens the mind and it makes you a much better thinker. I encourage anyone to certainly study STEM and to also consider combining it with another discipline. STEM trains the mind to be inquiring, and to not just accept information without questioning, which is a highly valuable skill.
Can you tell us a bit about your role as Vice-President of the Institute of Patent and Trade Mark Attorneys of Australia (IPTA) and how you support people working in IP?
IPTA is the peak professional body for patent and trade mark attorneys in Australia. I’ve been a member of IPTA since I started at Wrays in 1987, and I joined IPTA council in 2012 because I wanted to contribute to the profession and help shape the industry. I’ve been able to do that as part of my role through very close contact with IP Australia.
One of the things I push is for people to be involved and active at all levels. It’s important to encourage younger professionals to consider how they can shape and contribute to the profession so that it doesn’t stand still. We’ve come a long way from when I began my career in IP. It was very skewed then, with very few women in the profession and limited leadership roles.
What do you hope to see from women in STEM of the future?
I think it’s very important for women to be supportive of each other.
I’m very encouraging of any woman that works with me. I support them 110% and push them hard to achieve because the way I look at it is that their success is my success.
Get connected
+ 03 8538 5800
+ jennifer.mcewan@wrays.com.au
+ in/jennifermcewan