The women’s health technology landscape has seen apps evolve from simple digital diaries into some of its most recognisable components. These tools sit quietly on our phones, helping users track periods, fertility, pelvic-floor changes, or menopause symptoms – gradual, month-long patterns that are not always obvious without consistent tracking. When captured daily, these details build a more coherent view of what the body is doing over time, moving away from a generic approach to healthcare that has historically overlooked individual biological fluctuations.
This shift towards digital tracking is happening at enormous scale. A 2024 Oxford study found that the menstrual cycle and fertility tracking apps Flo, Clue, and Period Tracker accounted for more than 250 million downloads, with users mainly seeking help with cycle tracking (61%), trying to conceive (22%), community (9%), or avoiding pregnancy (8%). The broader digital-health market reflects this momentum as well, with health and wellness apps reaching 3.6 billion global downloads in 2024.
Current developments in this sector are increasingly addressing gaps that were once neglected. Some of the most striking innovations are emerging around menopause, transforming what was once an isolating stage of life into one supported by data-driven insights. Apps like Balance and Caria offer daily symptom logging and personalised guidance that help users recognise patterns that might otherwise feel random. Pelvic-floor health has seen a similar transformation through tools like Elvie, PeriCoach, and Perifit, which pair physical devices with apps to provide visual feedback on muscle response and use app-based platforms to gamify or clinically track progress. This technology gives users guidance they would not have had previously. Alongside these, Natural Cycles has successfully navigated medical regulation with its non-hormonal contraception model, and Mira pairs at-home testing (analysing urine samples for specific hormonal markers) with app-based interpretation to predict fertile windows. Beyond healthcare, the ecosystem includes safety tools like Sister, which provides GPS tracking and SOS alerts to trusted contacts, and UrSafe, which enables voice-activated emergency alerts. Social apps such as Peanut further expand the field by creating spaces for women to connect, illustrating how women-focused technology now reflects wider needs around mobility and community.
As these technologies evolve from niche tools to established fixtures of the digital health sector, securing the relevant intellectual property becomes a central priority. IP is what transforms a technological breakthrough into a defensible commercial asset, providing the legal basis to prevent competitors from capitalising on an innovator’s research and development. A frequent misconception in the digital space is that software is sufficiently protected by copyright alone. While copyright does automatically protect the written code as a literary work, it does not safeguard the underlying technical methods or functional logic. To protect the actual innovative concept, rather than just its literal expression, a more comprehensive approach involving patents, designs, and trade marks is required.
Securing a patent is a strategic priority for any digital development that delivers a tangible technical advancement. In the health and wellness apps space, this form of protection is particularly valuable for concepts such as improved sensor systems, more accurate prediction models, or on-device data processing where the software contributes to measurable technical performance rather than simply providing a new way of presenting information.
However, the patent landscape in this field is demanding. Menstrual-tracking and fertility-logging technologies have been developed for many years, so applicants often find themselves working with a dense body of prior art. In these mature markets, applicants must navigate the tension between defining a sufficiently distinct invention and ensuring the scope isn’t overly restrictive. Establishing novelty and inventive step in this field generally relies on isolating technical aspects, such as improvements in data acquisition or signal processing, rather than high-level ideas like “predicting”. The ability to focus on such “technical” features is especially important as jurisdictions like the EPO apply strict software exclusions where “non-technical” features are excluded from the assessment of inventive step, often resulting in the refusal of claims that fail to demonstrate a clear technical character.
Careful framing of the patent’s claims, which emphasises the technical implementation of the software or the specific technical problem it solves, often determines whether an invention is judged to have the necessary technical character, and therefore whether a patent is granted. The challenge is further compounded by the fact that global patent law regarding software and AI is evolving unevenly. When drafting a patent application, preparing differentiated claim strategies with these divergences in mind can significantly improve the prospects of securing protection internationally.
Even where the underlying algorithm is the primary focus, the visual interface and brand identity of an app are essential for building user trust. The aesthetic elements of a product, ranging from the overall form of a wearable to specific graphical user interface layouts, can be protected through design registrations. The accelerated timeline for obtaining these registrations provides a practical advantage, offering a more immediate basis for challenging copycat competitors than is usually possible through the patent system. Similarly, trade marks allow customers to distinguish your products from those of others. Recognisable icons and concise brand names are commercially significant, though applicants may run into issues around descriptiveness (e.g. if names directly reference cycles or symptoms) or conflicts with earlier marks in a crowded category.
Because digital services often operate through a distributed architecture, it may be that the service provider is in one country, the end user is in another, and the cloud servers processing the data are in a third. As IP rights are inherently geographic and, unlike the data being transmitted, do not necessarily cross borders, being aware of this geographical fragmentation is important both for protecting your own rights and for navigating those of others. For example, it can be difficult to determine exactly where an act of infringement is occurring, particularly if part of a claimed process happens on a user’s device, while another part occurs on a server located in another country. When determining a filing strategy, it is vital to map out not just where your customers are, but where the technical infrastructure resides.
While the requirements for protecting digital health tools are exacting, a wide range of strategic options remain open to innovators. Factoring these considerations into the initial drafting process is vital, and consulting an IP expert early on allows the specific requirements of software and medical technology to be considered and addressed. This allows for a more resilient IP position to be built, helping to avoid complications as the product evolves. Ultimately, a multi-layered portfolio of patents, designs, and trade marks that aligns with the technical core of the product will strengthen its commercial position in the competitive digital FemTech space.
If you are developing new solutions in this sector and would like to discuss a tailored approach to your intellectual property, Carpmaels & Ransford is ready to assist.