Patent2SDG: mapping patent innovation to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
From vision to prototype
I’ve always believed that Artificial Intelligence shouldn’t just automate processes — it should inspire action. That belief sparked Patent2SDG, a graph-based AI engine designed to bridge the gap between technological innovation and global sustainability efforts.
Today, I’m proud to share that Patent2SDG has been officially selected by the European Patent Office (EPO) as one of the ideas to be developed as part of the CodeFest Spring 2025.
The problem
Despite the wealth of technological knowledge found in patent databases, there’s no scalable, automated system to map those patents to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Current classification methods are manual, time-consuming, and fail to capture complex relationships or reveal hidden opportunities.
The solution: Patent2SDG
Patent2SDG is a modular, API-ready AI engine built to semantically map patents to relevant SDGs using advanced NLP and graph-based techniques.
Core components include:
- Semantic embedding: patent texts and SDG definitions are embedded into a shared vector space using SBERT.
- Graph construction: patents (blue nodes) and SDGs (green nodes) are connected by weighted edges based on cosine similarity.
- AI-generated opportunities: overlapping areas are used to generate new opportunity nodes (yellow) and startup-ready ideas (orange).
- Front-end demo: A user-facing prototype is being built with Streamlit for intuitive exploration.
Technical stack
- Language models: SBERT / SentenceTransformers
- Graph Libraries: NetworkX, PyTorch Geometric
- Front-End: Streamlit
Why it matters
It enables:
- Policymakers to understand which SDGs are being driven by tech innovation
- Startups to find idea gaps and tech opportunities
- Researchers to discover unexpected patent clusters
- Investors to align portfolios with SDG trends
Let’s connect!
I’m actively looking for collaborators — especially researchers, accelerators, policy labs, and universities interested in exploring the intersection between AI, patents, and sustainability.
If you’re curious about the project, want to see a live demo, or discuss potential use cases, feel free to reach out via email: andreamaggetto40@gmail.com
What’s next
A public deployment is underway. For now, Patent2SDG remains a private development project, but I’m open to meaningful conversations and collaborations with individuals or institutions aligned with this mission.
You can also check out the official EPO announcement to learn more about the challenge.
Let’s build a more sustainable future through the power of intelligent technology.
