Canada CIPO Patents Scraper

Canada CIPO Patents Scraper

Scrape Canadian patents from CIPO by keyword, assignee, inventor, or date range, up to a million per run. Each patent comes with its title, abstract, claims, and legal status. No login or API key. Export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML.

CIPO's official patent search is built for manual browsing, not bulk analysis. This Actor reads the public Canadian patent database directly, filters by assignee, inventor, status, language, or priority date, and returns each match in one fixed schema.

Who uses it	What they scrape Canadian Patents for
Patent attorneys	Checking freedom-to-operate for a client's new product
R&D teams	Monitoring competitor filings in a technology area
Market researchers	Mapping innovation trends across Canadian industries
Academic researchers	Building datasets of Canadian patents for citation analysis

What it does

This Actor collects Canadian patent records from the CIPO database by search query and optional filters, and returns each one as a flat row.

• 🔍 Keyword search: free-text query with exact phrase support using double quotes.
• 🏢 Assignee and inventor filters: narrow results to a specific company or person.
• 📅 Priority date range: restrict to patents filed within a given period.
• 🌐 Country and language filters: target patents from a specific jurisdiction or language.
• 📊 Status filter: choose granted patents, applications, or both.
• ↕️ Sort order: newest first, oldest first, or by relevance.

Results export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML, or straight from the API.

What you can do with Canadian Patents data

🔎 Freedom-to-operate searches.

A patent attorney enters a client's product keywords and filters by status GRANT to quickly list all active Canadian patents that could block commercialization.

📈 Competitor monitoring.

An R&D manager sets the assignee to a rival company and runs the Actor weekly to see every new Canadian patent filing from that competitor.

🌍 Innovation landscape mapping.

A market researcher queries a broad technology term like 'solar panel' and exports the results to analyze filing trends by year, assignee, and region.

📚 Academic dataset building.

A university researcher collects all Canadian patents in a specific IPC class over a decade to study citation networks and technology diffusion.

Why choose this scraper

	What you get
No API key	Access CIPO's public database without registration or rate limits
Bulk export	Get up to a million patents per run in CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML
Fixed schema	Every patent returns the same fields for easy analysis
Flexible filters	Combine query, assignee, inventor, status, language, and date range

How it compares

No other Store actor targets Canadian Patents the same way, so the honest comparison is with the alternatives teams actually weigh.

	Canada CIPO Patents Scraper	Build it in-house	By hand
Setup	Run it now, zero config	Days of engineering	None, but hours per pull
When Canadian Patents changes	Maintained for you	You fix it	You re-learn the page
Proxies, retries, anti-bot	Built in	Your problem	Browser only
Output	Fixed JSON schema, CSV/Excel export	Whatever you build	Copy-paste
Cost	Pay per result	Engineering time	Analyst hours

Configure the run

Drive the Actor from a search query, assignee, inventor, status, language, and priority date range, alone or together, and filters run as each patent is read so only matches reach your dataset. The Input tab lists every parameter.

A first run with the defaults:

{
  "maxItems": 10,
  "query": "oil sands",
  "country": "CA",
  "sort": "new"
}

A larger pull:

{
  "maxItems": 200,
  "query": "oil sands",
  "country": "CA",
  "sort": "new"
}

Pricing

Pay-per-result: $0.021 per result collected. You pay only for the results written to your dataset.

Results collected	Approximate cost
100 results	$2.10
1,000 results	$21.00
10,000 results	$210.00

New Apify accounts start with $5 in free credit.

Free users

Free-plan runs return up to 10 results as a preview. Upgrade your Apify plan to collect up to 1,000,000 results per run.

Run it

1. Create a free Apify account with $5 in credit.
2. Open the Canada CIPO Patents Scraper.
3. Set your inputs and any filters, then click Start.
4. Export the results as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML from the Dataset tab.

Run it programmatically through the Apify API (run-sync-get-dataset-items) or the ApifyClient for JavaScript and Python.

Use with AI agents (MCP)

Give an AI agent live access to Canadian Patents through the Model Context Protocol. Add the Actor to Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client:

$claude mcp add --transport http apify "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=parseforge/canada-cipo-patents-scraper"

Then prompt it in plain language to run the scraper and read back the results.

Troubleshooting

Why am I getting no results?

Check that your query is not too restrictive. Try removing some filters like assignee, inventor, or date range. Also ensure your search term is spelled correctly and not an exact phrase unless intended.

The Actor returns fewer patents than expected.

The CIPO database may not have all patents indexed in the same way. Try broadening your query or removing the status filter. Also check the maxItems setting to ensure it is high enough.

I get an error when using a date range.

Make sure the date format is YYYY-MM-DD, for example 2023-01-01. Also ensure dateFrom is not after dateTo.

The export file is missing some fields.

The Actor returns a fixed schema, but some fields may be empty if the patent does not have that data. Check the raw JSON output to see if the field exists but is null.

FAQ

Question	Answer
Does this Actor require a CIPO API key?	No. It reads the public Canadian patent database directly, so no registration or authentication is needed.
Can I search by patent number?	The Actor does not have a dedicated patent number field, but you can enter the number in the search query field and it will match if the number appears in the patent text.
What is the maximum number of patents I can get in one run?	You can set maxItems up to 1,000,000. The actual number returned depends on how many patents match your filters.
How do I filter for only granted patents?	Set the status field to GRANT. To get only applications, set it to APPLICATION. Leave it empty to get both.
Can I filter by priority date?	Yes, use dateFrom and dateTo in YYYY-MM-DD format to restrict results to patents with a priority date in that range.
What export formats are supported?	The Actor can export results to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML, depending on your Apify dataset settings.
Does the Actor return the full patent text?	The Actor returns the title, abstract, and claims as available in the CIPO database. The full description may not be included.
Can I search in French?	Yes, you can enter French keywords in the query field. You can also filter by language code 'fr' to get only French-language patents.
Is there a way to sort results by relevance?	Yes, set the sort field to Relevance (empty string) to get results ordered by relevance to your query.
Can I filter by country of origin?	Yes, use the country field to select a specific country code like US, CA, or EP. Leave it empty for worldwide.

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🆘 Need help? Email parseforge@protonmail.com with your run ID, your input, and what you expected.

⚠️ Disclaimer. This Actor is unofficial and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Canadian Intellectual Property Office. It collects only publicly available data. You are responsible for using the collected data in compliance with the source's terms of service and applicable data-protection laws, including GDPR, CCPA, and PIPL. Do not use it to collect personal data unlawfully.