Trademark Search API & Watch: USPTO + Australia

Trademark search and trademark watch without writing code. Search trademarks by word mark (exact, contains or fuzzy and sound-alike), owner, Nice class or number, and get clean rows: mark text, serial and registration number, live/dead status, filing and registration dates, owner name and address, Nice classes, goods and services, attorney, mark image link and the official record link. Watch mode reports only new filings that look like your brand since the last run, for brand protection alerts.

Two offices, official sources only:

Office	Source	Key	What you can do
Australia (AU)	IP Australia IP RAPID open data on data.gov.au (refreshed weekly, CC BY 4.0)	none	Search the whole Australian register by word mark, owner and Nice class; lookup by number; weekly watch
United States (US)	USPTO TSDR API (case status) and USPTO Open Data Portal (daily trademark application files)	free USPTO keys	Lookup by serial or registration number; search and watch new US filings by word mark, owner and Nice class

No scraping, no logins, no browser automation: only the documented APIs and open data the offices publish.

How to search trademarks

1. Pick the Trademark office (AU needs nothing; US needs a free key, see below).
2. Pick What do you want?: Search, Lookup or Watch.
3. Enter Word marks (one per line) and choose the Match type:
   • exact: same text (case, accents, punctuation and spacing ignored)
   • contains: the term appears inside the mark (kombucha finds KOMBUCHA KING)
   • fuzzy: also close spellings and sound-alikes (kombucha finds KOMBUCHER, COMBUCHA)
4. Optional filters: Owner names, Nice classes, Live marks only, filing date range. Set Max results to cap rows and cost.

Every row says how it matched: matchType (exact, contains, fuzzy, phonetic), exactMatch, containsMatch, fuzzyMatch, phoneticMatch and a similarity score from 0 to 1. Best matches come first: exact, then contains, then fuzzy; live before dead; newest first.

How trademark watch works

Choose Watch and schedule the Actor (daily for US, weekly for AU). Each run remembers what it already reported, so you only get new matching filings:

• US: each run reads the USPTO daily application files it has not processed yet (weekends and missed days are caught up automatically, up to 90 days). The first run looks back daysBack days.
• AU: IP Australia refreshes IP RAPID weekly. A run on an unchanged snapshot reports nothing and says so; otherwise it reports matching marks filed recently that were not reported before.

Send the matches to Slack, email or a database with an integration (see Related tools).

Trademark lookup by serial number (USPTO and Australia)

Choose Lookup. US: put 8-digit serial numbers or 7-digit registration numbers (needs the TSDR key). AU: put trade mark numbers in Serial / trade mark numbers (no key).

Get your free USPTO API keys (US only)

The USPTO runs two separate key systems:

• TSDR API key (US lookup by number): sign in or create a free USPTO.gov account at account.uspto.gov/api-manager and request a TSDR API key. Paste it into USPTO TSDR API key.
• Open Data Portal key (US search and watch): create a USPTO.gov account, verify your identity with ID.me, then get the key at data.uspto.gov/apikey. Paste it into USPTO Open Data Portal API key.

Both are free and stored as secrets; they are never logged or written to the dataset. If you only have one key, put it in either field and the Actor tries it for both. TSDR is rate limited per key: the Actor waits about 1 second between lookups and backs off when TSDR answers HTTP 429. Unused Open Data Portal keys are deleted after 90 days of inactivity; a scheduled watch keeps yours in use.

What data can you extract

Same flat fields for both offices (empty when an office does not publish the value): office, markText, markImageWords, markImageDescription, markKind, serialNumber, registrationNumber, status (live/dead/unknown), statusCode, statusText, statusDate, filingDate, registrationDate, publishedForOppositionDate, deadDate, ownerName, ownerAddress, ownerCity, ownerState, ownerPostcode, ownerCountry, ownerEntityType, owners, niceClasses, goodsServices, goodsServicesText, attorney, attorneyFirm, match fields, markImageUrl, sourceUrl, source, license, dataAsOf.

Input example

{
  "office": "US",
  "mode": "watch",
  "searchTerms": ["kombucha", "brewlabs"],
  "matchType": "fuzzy",
  "niceClasses": ["32"],
  "daysBack": 7,
  "odpApiKey": "YOUR_ODP_KEY"
}

Australian register search, no key:

{
  "office": "AU",
  "mode": "search",
  "searchTerms": ["qantas"],
  "matchType": "fuzzy",
  "liveOnly": true,
  "maxResults": 50
}

Output example

{
  "recordType": "trademark", "office": "AU", "markText": "QANTAS", "markKind": "word",
  "serialNumber": "1771259", "registrationNumber": "1771259",
  "status": "live", "statusCode": "protected", "statusText": "Protected",
  "filingDate": "2016-05-17", "registrationDate": "2017-03-14",
  "ownerName": "qantas airways limited", "ownerAddress": "NSW, 2020, AU", "ownerCountry": "AU", "ownerAbn": "16009661901",
  "niceClasses": ["006", "009", "014", "016", "018"],
  "attorney": "herbert smith freehills kramer",
  "matchedTerm": "qantas", "matchType": "exact", "exactMatch": true, "containsMatch": true,
  "fuzzyMatch": true, "phoneticMatch": true, "similarity": 1.0,
  "sourceUrl": "https://search.ipaustralia.gov.au/trademarks/search/view/1771259",
  "source": "IP Australia IP RAPID open data (CC BY 4.0)", "dataAsOf": "2026-10-19"
}

A US row also has goodsServices ([{"class": "009", "text": "Downloadable game software; ..."}]), ownerEntityType, attorneyFirm, markImageUrl (https://tsdr.uspto.gov/img/<serial>/large) and a TSDR sourceUrl. Watch rows have recordType: "watchMatch". A SUMMARY record and, when something needs your attention, a NOTES record are saved in the key-value store.

Trademark search API

Call this Actor from the Apify API, Python, JavaScript, Make, Zapier or n8n and get trademark records as JSON, or export them to CSV, Excel or Google Sheets. You get one flat schema for the USPTO and IP Australia.

Use it in Claude, ChatGPT and Cursor

Connect Apify's MCP server (mcp.apify.com) and your AI assistant can check names itself. For example: "is 'kombucha' already a registered trade mark in Australia in class 32?" The Australian office needs no key, so it works straight away.

Use cases

• Brand protection: daily alerts for new US filings that copy or sound like your brand, filtered to your Nice classes.
• Trademark clearance (Australia): check a name against the full Australian register, including dead marks.
• Portfolio monitoring: status, owner and dates for a list of US serial or registration numbers.
• Lead generation for IP firms: new filings by class, with the filer and attorney.

How much does it cost

Pay per event:

• trademark-record: each trademark row you get.
• watch-match: each new match in watch mode (instead of trademark-record).
• data-scan: $0.01 for each pass over a data source, because the whole source is read whatever the number of results. An Australian run makes 1 to 3 passes (the register search, plus one for Nice classes and one for owners if you switch them on); a US search or watch makes one per USPTO daily file. US lookups by number have no scan fee.

Set Max results to cap the cost; if your spending limit is reached, the run stops cleanly and says so.

Limits (honest)

• USPTO has no official API to search the whole US register by word mark or owner. US search and watch cover the daily filing files of the chosen window (new applications, or also changed cases). For a full US clearance search use the USPTO's own search system or a lawyer.
• US records from the daily files are as filed that day; use Lookup (TSDR) for the current status of a mark.
• AU data is IP Australia's weekly snapshot, so the newest filings can be up to a week behind. It has no goods/services text (classes only) and no street address, and names of individual owners are withheld (ownerNameWithheld: true).
• Each AU run streams large open-data files (about 200 MB for a search without owners and classes, about 800 MB with both), so an AU run takes roughly 30 seconds to 3 minutes whatever the number of results.
• Fuzzy matching is simple (edit distance and Soundex, mostly same first letter). It is a screening aid, not a legal likelihood-of-confusion opinion.
• US status lookups were tested on a real TSDR sample response. The daily-file parser follows the USPTO's published XML documentation and was tested on a sample built from that documentation; no live daily file has been parsed yet (that needs a key). If a field comes out empty on your first US run, tell us.

FAQ

Is trademark search free?

The offices' data and keys are free. This Actor charges per result row on Apify; the Australian search needs no key at all.

Can I search the whole USPTO database by word mark?

Not through an official API: the USPTO only offers lookup by number (TSDR) and bulk files. This Actor searches the daily US filing files (new filings, ideal for watching) and looks up any mark by number.

How do I look up a trademark in Australia?

Choose the AU office and Search, then enter the name. You get every matching mark on the full Australian register, live and dead, with owner, classes and status. No key is needed.

Is there a USPTO trademark search API?

The USPTO offers lookup by number (TSDR) and daily bulk filing files, but no API that searches the whole register by name. This Actor uses both: lookup by serial or registration number, and search or watch over the daily filing files.

How do I get a USPTO API key?

See "Get your free USPTO API keys" above: a TSDR key from account.uspto.gov/api-manager for lookups, and an Open Data Portal key from data.uspto.gov/apikey (ID.me verification) for search and watch.

What is a Nice class?

The international classification of goods and services (classes 1 to 45, e.g. 9 software, 25 clothing, 32 non-alcoholic drinks). Filter by the classes your brand uses to cut noise.

How do I monitor new trademark filings for my brand?

Use Watch mode with your brand terms and fuzzy matching, add your Nice classes, and schedule it daily. You get only filings not reported before.

Is it legal to use this trademark data?

Trademark registers are public records. Australian data is IP Australia open data under CC BY 4.0 (keep the attribution in the source field). Owner names and addresses are published by the offices; use them in line with privacy and marketing laws where you are.

Related tools

• Companies House API: UK Company, Officer & PSC Data: check the company behind a mark.
• Company Enrichment API: Domain to Tech, Jobs & Socials: website, socials and tech stack of an applicant.
• Send Data to Slack, Discord, Email, Notion & Postgres: deliver watch matches where your team works.