USPTO Patents Scraper — US Patent Search via PatentsView API

USPTO Patents Scraper lets you bulk-export US patents from the official USPTO Open Data Portal (ODP) API — the successor to PatentsView. Search 10M+ granted patents and pending applications by keyword, inventor, assignee, CPC class, or date range. Get patent number, title, abstract, inventors, assignees, classifications, citations, and direct Google Patents URLs.

Free official US gov API. No anti-bot, no proxy needed. Get a free USPTO ODP API key in 30 seconds, paste it in, click Start.

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What can USPTO Patents Scraper do?

• 🔍 Keyword search — full-text search across title, abstract, and claims (e.g. CRISPR Cas9, battery thermal management, autonomous vehicle lidar)
• 👤 Inventor lookup — find every patent filed by a specific inventor
• 🏢 Assignee filter — pull all patents owned by a company (e.g. Apple Inc., Tesla, Google)
• 🏷️ CPC classification — filter by Cooperative Patent Classification code (H01M batteries, G06N AI/ML, A61K pharma)
• 📅 Date range — filter by grant date (granted patents) or filing date (pending applications)
• 🔢 Direct patent number lookup — pass a list of patent numbers, get full records back
• 📥 Up to 10,000 patents per run — auto-pagination, server-side
• 🤖 Stable PatentsView-compatible schema — drop-in replacement for the retired PatentsView API

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What data can you extract per US patent?

Field	Description
patent_number	USPTO patent number (e.g. 10000000)
patent_title	Title of invention
patent_abstract	Full abstract text
patent_date	Grant date (YYYY-MM-DD)
patent_kind	Kind code (B1 granted, A1 published application, etc.)
application_number	Original USPTO application number
application_date	Filing date of the application
inventors	Array of inventor full names
assignees	Array of assignee / patent-owner names
cpc_classifications	Array of CPC classification symbols
ipc_classifications	Array of IPC classification symbols
citation_count	Number of times this patent has been cited by other patents
claim_count	Number of independent + dependent claims
patent_url	Direct viewable URL on Google Patents
examiner_name	Primary USPTO examiner name
search_type	grants or applications
scraped_at	ISO 8601 UTC timestamp

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How to scrape US patents

1. Create a free Apify account — no credit card required
2. Get a free USPTO ODP API key at data.uspto.gov/apis/key-management (30 seconds, no credit card)
3. Open USPTO Patents Scraper in Apify Store
4. Enter your search — keyword (battery thermal management), inventor, assignee, CPC class, or a list of patent numbers
5. Paste your USPTO ODP key in the usptoApiKey field (stored encrypted in Apify Secrets)
6. Click Start — patents stream into the dataset in seconds
7. Download results in JSON, CSV, or Excel — or pull them via API

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How much does it cost to scrape USPTO patents?

$0.008 per patent extracted (≈ $8 per 1,000 patents) plus a tiny actor-start fee.

Run size	Patents	Apify cost	Time
Quick test	10	~$0.08	~10s
Standard	100	~$0.80	~45s
Deep search	1,000	~$8.00	~6 min
Massive export	10,000	~$80.00	~50 min

The official USPTO ODP API is free and rate-limited at ~50 req/min with a personal key — the actor jitters requests to stay under the cap. Pricing covers compute + dataset storage + actor maintenance.

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Input

Parameter	Type	Required	Default	Description
searchType	string	❌	grants	grants (issued patents) or applications (pending)
query	string	❌	—	Free-text keywords searched in title + abstract + claims
inventor	string	❌	—	Inventor full name (e.g. Elon Musk)
assignee	string	❌	—	Assignee / company (e.g. Apple Inc.)
cpcClass	string	❌	—	CPC code (e.g. H01M, G06N)
dateFrom	string	❌	—	Filter from date (YYYY-MM-DD)
dateTo	string	❌	—	Filter to date (YYYY-MM-DD)
patentNumbers	array	❌	[]	Direct patent-number lookup (skips search)
usptoApiKey	string	❌	—	Your free USPTO ODP API key (encrypted)
maxResults	integer	❌	100	Max patents per run (1–10,000)
proxyConfig	object	❌	datacenter	Apify proxy (rarely needed — gov API has no anti-bot)

Provide at least one of: query, inventor, assignee, cpcClass, or patentNumbers. Otherwise the actor gracefully returns instructions and exits without charging.

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Output example

{
  "patent_number": "11500000",
  "patent_title": "Battery thermal management system for electric vehicles",
  "patent_abstract": "A battery thermal management system comprising a coolant loop, a heat exchanger coupled to the battery pack, and a controller configured to maintain cell temperature within an optimal operating range...",
  "patent_date": "2022-11-15",
  "patent_kind": "B2",
  "application_number": "16/892,456",
  "application_date": "2020-06-03",
  "inventors": ["Jane Smith", "Robert Chen"],
  "assignees": ["Tesla, Inc."],
  "cpc_classifications": ["H01M10/6571", "H01M10/625", "B60L58/26"],
  "ipc_classifications": ["H01M10/65"],
  "citation_count": 42,
  "claim_count": 20,
  "patent_url": "https://patents.google.com/patent/US11500000",
  "examiner_name": "John Doe",
  "search_type": "grants",
  "scraped_at": "2026-06-12T14:30:00Z"
}

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Use cases

• Prior-art search before filing — patent attorneys can sweep the USPTO corpus for relevant prior art in a tech area, save hours vs. the manual Patent Public Search UI
• M&A IP due diligence — quickly inventory every patent assigned to a target company, including citation counts as a quality proxy
• Patent landscape analysis — pull every patent in a CPC class to map competitors, identify white-space, and track filing velocity quarter-over-quarter
• Competitor IP monitoring — schedule weekly runs filtered by assignee + date range to track new filings from Apple, Tesla, Pfizer, etc.
• Academic & R&D research — bulk-export patents matching a research topic for systematic reviews, citation network analysis, and innovation studies

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Use USPTO Patents Scraper via API

Python:

import requests

run = requests.post(
    "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/dltik~uspto-patents-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items",
    headers={"Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN"},
    json={
        "query": "battery thermal management",
        "assignee": "Tesla",
        "dateFrom": "2020-01-01",
        "maxResults": 100,
        "usptoApiKey": "YOUR_USPTO_ODP_KEY"
    },
    timeout=600
).json()

for patent in run:
    print(patent.get("patent_number"), "—", patent.get("patent_title"))

curl:

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/dltik~uspto-patents-scraper/runs" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"query": "CRISPR", "maxResults": 50, "usptoApiKey": "YOUR_USPTO_ODP_KEY"}'

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FAQ

Do I need a USPTO API key? A free key is strongly recommended. The anonymous shared key is heavily rate-limited (a few requests per minute) and may fail on larger runs. Get a personal key in 30 seconds at data.uspto.gov/apis/key-management — no credit card. With a personal key, you get ~50 req/min.

What's the rate limit? The USPTO ODP API caps at ~50 requests per minute per personal API key. The actor jitters page requests (~0.35s between pages of 100 results) to stay under the cap. For 10,000-patent runs, this is the bottleneck — expect ~50 minutes wall-clock.

Is the USPTO ODP API stable? ODP replaced the retired PatentsView API in mid-2024 and is now the official supported endpoint. The actor's output schema is normalized to be PatentsView-compatible — drop-in replacement for code that consumed the legacy API.

What patents are covered? Granted US patents back to 1790 (the entire USPTO archive), plus pending applications published since 2001. Full-text title, abstract, and claims are searchable for patents granted since ~1976.

Does it work for design patents and plant patents? Yes — granted design patents (D prefix) and plant patents (PP prefix) are returned by the grants search type. Utility, design, and reissue patents are all included.

I need help or a custom solution. Open an issue on the Issues tab or contact us through Apify.

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Connect with Make, Zapier & n8n

This actor integrates with any automation platform via the Apify API.

Make (Integromat)

1. Add an Apify module in your Make scenario
2. Select Run Actor and choose USPTO Patents Scraper
3. Configure the input (paste your JSON)
4. Add a Get Dataset Items module to retrieve results
5. Connect to Google Sheets, Notion, Airtable, or your CRM

Zapier

1. Use the Apify integration on Zapier
2. Set trigger: Actor Run Finished
3. Action: Get Dataset Items
4. Send results to your IP-management tool, email, or spreadsheet

n8n

1. Add an HTTP Request node to call the Apify API
2. POST to https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/dltik~uspto-patents-scraper/runs
3. Wait for completion, then fetch dataset items
4. Route results to any n8n node

Webhooks

run = client.actor("dltik/uspto-patents-scraper").call(
    run_input={"query": "CRISPR", "maxResults": 100},
    webhooks=[{
        "eventTypes": ["ACTOR.RUN.SUCCEEDED"],
        "requestUrl": "https://your-webhook-url.com"
    }]
)

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