Ready for the EPO’s first ever public CodeFest?

The EPO’s first ever public CodeFest
commences on 15 September and tackles one of today’s key sustainability
challenges: ridding the planet of plastic waste. Global success depends on
access to the right kind of know-how and that’s what this major new competition
is all about: making the know-how contained in patents concerning green
plastics more readily available to innovators everywhere.

The ultimate aim is to inspire
future innovation that supports healthy ecosystems and drives the circular
economy for plastics. In alignment with the United Nations Sustainable
Development Goals, we are taking our commitment to sustainability and monitoring
green technologies to the next level with initiatives such as the EPO’s CodeFest
on Green Plastics.

Some of the groundwork has already
been done in a recent EPO study on patents for tomorrow’s plastics. This shows how
patent data reflects the rapid rise in innovation in plastics that are easier
to recycle, as well as in recycling technologies. The study provides an
excellent introduction to the topic and an important starting point for anyone
wishing to take on the current code challenge, which is:

To develop
creative and reliable artificial intelligence (AI) models for automating the
identification of patents related to green plastics.

We are calling on talented minds
to register for the event now, either in an individual capacity or as a
team of up to five people. If you are aged 18 or over, resident in one of the EPO
member states and meet the eligibility criteria set out in the rules of
the competition, simply go to the official registration site below and enter
by 31 October.

With their registration, entrants
are expected to submit an outline of their approach for solving the code
challenge, which then runs from 15 November 2022 to 15 January 2023.
The finalists will be announced ahead of the online CodeFest award ceremony on 23
February at 14.00 hrs CET. 

Submissions will be evaluated by
senior specialists from across the EPO working in sustainability, IT, data
science and AI, as well as patent information and analysis. The biographies of the
jury members are available via the official CodeFest on Green Plastics site.

Prize money totalling EUR 45 000 has
been made available for this competition.

The EPO’s unparalleled data
resources are relied upon by a range of governmental and international
organisations, such as IP Offices, the OECD, International Energy Agency (IEA),
International Renewable Energy Association (IRENA) and European Commission, as
well as researchers and patent information specialists. The CodeFest on Green
Plastics is a major opportunity to help improve access to these resources and contribute
to the development of an automated classification scheme for sustainable
technologies. The competition will also help prepare the way for creating a
platform for exchange on AI-based approaches to organising the EPO’s wealth
of patent information.