This article examines the role of gender in inventors’ collaborations and individual patenting success. We study how the time needed by an inventor to eventually become a "star" relates to their portfolio of female and male co-innovators with different characteristics in terms of career seniority and accomplishments. Our empirical analysis applies different survival models to a representative sample of almost 40’000 inventors and all their patenting co-authors, followed over a period of 10 years. We find that both gender and the relationship to other successful individuals matters. More precisely, gender diversity in inventors’ teams supports a faster career progress to stardom, seniority of peers plays a significant role only when they are mostly of the same gender, and the presence of stars among conventions is a strong catalyst of other stars, especially when among women.

This article examines the factors that underlie the gender gap in patenting activities with large predominance of male innovators. In particular, the study investigates the presence of women among outstanding inventors, which we define as the "stars". Star innovators are identified through two different definitions with respect to the quantity and quality of their output, distinguishing between prolific inventors with high numbers of patents registered in their name and inventors with high numbers of citations per patent. Using data for more than 600’000 inventors, with up to 30 years of patent activity for each individual, we find that women are underrepresented among the overall pool of inventors, but less so among stars, and on the contrary, there seems to be a female advantage among top innovators, probably driven by selection effects.