📜 Japan J-PlatPat — JPO Patent & Trademark Search (INPIT)

Search the Japan Patent Office's official J-PlatPat platform (operated by INPIT — Independent Administrative Institution National Center for Industrial Property Information and Training) for patents, utility models, designs, and trademarks.

The legal source-of-record for Japanese IP rights — used by Toyota, Sony, Mitsubishi corporate counsel; Patsnap / Derwent / LexisNexis pull the same data into $20,000–$50,000/year subscriptions. This actor returns it as clean JSON at PPE prices.

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⚡ What you get

A structured row per IP record:

Field	What it is
application_number	出願番号 — e.g. 2024-123456 (the canonical filing ID)
registration_number	登録番号 — populated once the right is granted
title	発明の名称 / 商標 / 意匠 — Japanese title
applicant_names	Array of 出願人 (rights holder organizations)
inventor_names	Array of 発明者 (patents and utility models only)
IPC_codes	International Patent Classification codes
FI_codes	Japan's File Index — the JPO's domestic classification overlay on IPC
application_date	出願日 (ISO)
publication_date	公開日 / 公報発行日 (ISO)
registration_date	登録日 (ISO, when granted)
status	Pending / granted / abandoned / etc.
search_type	patent / utility_model / design / trademark
document_url	Link to the J-PlatPat document viewer
priority_claim	Paris Convention priority filing reference (when include_priority=true)

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🎯 Use cases

• IP due diligence — verify the patent estate of a Japanese acquisition target before signing the SPA.
• Competitor patent monitoring — weekly sweeps of recent filings by named applicants (Toyota, Sony, Panasonic, SoftBank).
• License negotiation prep — pull the full claims set against a target IPC class before sitting down with the rights holder.
• Filing strategy analysis — measure how quickly competitors are converting US/EU filings into Japan via PCT national-phase entry.
• Freedom-to-Operate (FTO) — ensure your product doesn't infringe live Japanese rights before launching in the JP market.

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📊 Sample output

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🚀 How to use

Sample input — recent lithium-ion battery patents

{
  "search_type": "patent",
  "query": "リチウムイオン電池",
  "date_from": "2024-01-01",
  "date_to": "2025-12-31",
  "max_records": 100
}

Sample input — Toyota trademark filings

{
  "search_type": "trademark",
  "query": "Toyota",
  "applicant_filter": "トヨタ自動車",
  "max_records": 50
}

Sample input — utility models on robotics

{
  "search_type": "utility_model",
  "query": "ロボット",
  "max_records": 25
}

Python (apify-client)

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN")
run = client.actor("nexgendata/japan-jpo-jplatpat-patents-trademarks").call(
    run_input={
        "search_type": "patent",
        "query": "全固体電池",
        "max_records": 50,
    },
)
for record in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(record["application_number"], record["title"])

cURL

curl -X POST 'https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/nexgendata~japan-jpo-jplatpat-patents-trademarks/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"search_type":"patent","query":"半導体","max_records":25}'

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日本語の説明

特許庁（JPO）公式のJ-PlatPat（INPIT運営）から、特許・実用新案・意匠・商標の出願情報を構造化データとして提供します。商標出願、特許公開公報、登録情報をAPI経由で検索できます。

主な用途：

• 知的財産デューデリジェンス
• 競合特許モニタリング
• ライセンス交渉準備
• 出願戦略分析

入力パラメータ：

• search_type — patent（特許）／ utility_model（実用新案）／ design（意匠）／ trademark（商標）
• query — 検索キーワード（日本語またはローマ字）
• applicant_filter — 出願人名でフィルタ（任意）
• inventor_filter — 発明者名でフィルタ（任意）
• date_from / date_to — 公開日・出願日の範囲（ISO形式 YYYY-MM-DD）
• include_priority — 優先権主張情報を含むか
• max_records — 最大取得件数（1〜1000）

ご質問は hello@thenextgennexus.com までお問い合わせください。

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⚖️ Legal & data sources

J-PlatPat is operated by INPIT (Independent Administrative Institution National Center for Industrial Property Information and Training) on behalf of the Japan Patent Office (JPO). Patent disclosure is mandated by the Patent Act Article 65 (公報発行) — JPO is required by law to publish patent applications 18 months after filing and grants on the date of registration. Trademark, design, and utility model disclosures follow analogous mandates.

• Source URL: https://www.j-platpat.inpit.go.jp/
• INPIT open-data policy: programmatic access is invited; politely-identified bot User-Agent is the standard convention.
• This actor identifies itself with NexGenData-Contact: hello@thenextgennexus.com so INPIT can reach the operator if needed.

This actor is an independent third-party tool. It is not affiliated with INPIT, the JPO, or the Government of Japan.

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❓ FAQ

Q: Why use this instead of Google Patents? A: Google Patents covers about 70–80% of Japanese filings with a ~6-month lag and does not cover utility models or designs at all. JPO/J-PlatPat is the legal source-of-record.

Q: Is the abstract field always populated? A: No — the J-PlatPat result-list view exposes title + metadata; abstracts and full claims live behind the document_url link. A future version may follow each link and pull the full document text as an opt-in enrichment.

Q: How fresh is the data? A: J-PlatPat reflects new filings within hours of JPO publication (typically Wednesdays for the weekly batch). The 18-month publication-delay rule still applies — pre-publication applications are not visible to any external party.

Q: What if my search returns 0 records? A: J-PlatPat is bot-aware and may throttle aggressive sessions. The actor uses polite headers and standard browser pacing. If you hit an empty result repeatedly, try widening the date window or simplifying the query — Japanese full-text matching is strict on katakana/kanji forms.

Q: Can I search for IPC class only? A: Pass the IPC code (e.g. H01M) in the query field — J-PlatPat's simple search matches IPC tokens within the result corpus.

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🔗 Related actors

• 🇺🇸 USPTO Patent Search — US patent grants and applications
• 🇪🇺 EUIPO eSearch Trademarks — EU trademark register
• 🌍 WIPO PATENTSCOPE Search — PCT international patent applications
• 🏷️ Trademark Search — multi-jurisdiction trademark lookup

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🏷️ About NexGenData

NexGenData builds production-grade data actors for legal, financial, and regulatory intelligence. Reach us at hello@thenextgennexus.com.