Gain Invaluable Insights
into Sustainable
Technologies

ESG (Environment – Social – Governance) fields are not clearly defined categories and have no globally unanimous definition, so any mapping of patentable technologies would be vague and arguable. The SDGs, however, are well known and based on 169 defined targets, 231 detailed indicators and accompanying metadata.

All in all, this allows us to distinctly map patentable, novel and innovative technologies to the wording of the United Nations and gives us a solid foundation and ratification on why and how we did the patent mapping.

The protocol to establish the link between the SDGs and the patent data (inventions) is based on the framework provided by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

The Agenda provides 231 unique indicators for the 17 goals. These are global in nature and are universally applicable and complemented by indicators at the regional and national levels (developed by Member States). The indicators that are supposed to be used for tracking the progress towards the attainment of the SDGs can be mapped to advancements in science and technology as expressed through patentable inventions.

The criteria for patents are defined by territorial laws though the science in the patents is universal. This is in total alignment with the SDG framework where the global perspective is supposed to be implemented at the national level.

The technology areas with active patenting activity that can be explicitly mapped to the SDG targets and indicators are included. A discrete mapping procedure is followed. Each of the technology fields is defined to retrieve patents that disclose inventions specific to those technology areas and is clarified by the UN SDG metadata.

The Global SDG Indicators Database maintained and regularly updated by the Statistics Division makes data on the global SDG indicators available to all users and includes both country-level data and regional and global aggregates. As of March 2021, it includes data for 166 of the 231 indicators and more than 1.2 million data records. An accompanying metadata repository provides the metadata for the indicators that have internationally established methodology and standards.

Access to the country-level data and the metadata ensures full transparency with respect to the data and methodologies used for global reporting. The Database and metadata repository are maintained by the Statistics Division while the data and metadata are provided by international agencies and entities, also referred to as custodian agencies in accordance with their mandates. The combination of related keywords with different technology classifications available for patents viz. IPC (International Patent Classification), CPC (Cooperative Patent Classification) and F-term classification is used to define each technology/search topic.

All SDG-related searches were defined, created and mapped by a group of LexisNexis patent search experts. In an iterative approach, all underlying searches were reviewed and modified according to their results in regard to SDG compliance before finally being implemented into the PatentSight+ analytics tool.

Yes. Every search will be individually defined and made available to download in the product. The search fields will be explained in a description, by keywords, and key CPCs. Moreover, the mapping between search fields and the U.N. targets and indicators will be shared.

The subsequent searches that define the SDGs, based on the current targets and indicators defined by the U.N., are executed with our weekly data updates. The searches themselves will be adjusted if changes are introduced to the entire SDG framework.

Analyses based on the SDGs are available to all customers of PatentSight+ Enterprise. Reviewer and Reader accounts will also be able to incorporate the new SDG fields in their daily work.