USPTO PAIR Patent Scraper

USPTO PAIR Patent Scraper

Scrape patent application data from USPTO PAIR by keyword, assignee, inventor, or country, up to a million records per run. Each record returns the application status, priority dates, assignee, inventor, and full bibliographic details. Export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML.

The USPTO's Patent Application Information Retrieval system holds the legal status and history of millions of patents, but manually searching and compiling this data is slow and repetitive. This actor reads the public PAIR search interface directly, letting you query by free-text keyword, assignee, inventor, or country code, and returns each matching application in one fixed schema. No API key or registration is needed.

Who uses it	What they scrape USPTO PAIR for
Patent attorneys	Checking the prosecution status of a competitor's patent family before filing an office action response.
IP portfolio managers	Auditing a company's own granted patents and pending applications across multiple jurisdictions.
Market researchers	Identifying which companies are actively patenting in a specific technology area like solar panels or AI chips.
Academic researchers	Building a dataset of patent grants and applications to analyze innovation trends over time.

What it does

This Actor collects patent application records from USPTO PAIR by keyword, assignee, inventor, or country, and returns each one as a flat row with its bibliographic data and status.

• 🔍 Keyword search: Free-text query on the full patent record, with support for exact phrase matching using double quotes.
• 🏢 Assignee filter: Narrow results to patents held by a specific company or individual.
• 👤 Inventor filter: Find all applications listing a particular inventor.
• 🌐 Country filter: Restrict the search to a single patent office, such as the USPTO, EPO, WIPO, or JPO.
• 📅 Date range filter: Limit results to applications with a priority date within a specific YYYY-MM-DD window.
• 📊 Status filter: Choose to see only granted patents, only pending applications, or both.
• 🗂️ Sort order: Retrieve results sorted by newest first, oldest first, or by relevance to the search query.

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

What you can do with USPTO PAIR data

📈 Monitor competitor patent activity.

A patent attorney runs a weekly search for a competitor's assignee name, filtered to applications only, to spot new filings early and advise their client on potential freedom-to-operate risks.

📊 Build a technology landscape dataset.

A market researcher scrapes all granted patents containing the phrase "solid-state battery" filed in the last five years, then analyzes the assignee field to map the competitive landscape.

✅ Audit an internal IP portfolio.

An IP manager searches for their company's name as the assignee across multiple countries to verify that all expected applications are correctly recorded and to check their current status.

🔬 Gather data for academic research.

A PhD candidate collects all WIPO applications mentioning a specific gene sequence, filtering by date range, to study the evolution of patent filings in that field over a decade.

Why choose this scraper

	What you get
No API key required	Access public PAIR data without registering an application or managing OAuth tokens.
Multi-country search	Filter by over 30 patent offices, including the US, China, Japan, Korea, EPO, and WIPO.
Structured output	Every record is flattened into a consistent row, ready for analysis in Excel, SQL, or a BI tool.
High volume	Collect up to a million patent applications in a single run for large-scale landscape analysis.

How it compares

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

	USPTO PAIR Patent Scraper	Build it in-house	By hand
Setup	Run it now, zero config	Days of engineering	None, but hours per pull
When USPTO PAIR 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 free-text keyword query, assignee name, inventor name, and country code, alone or together, and filters run as each record is read so only matches reach your dataset. The Input tab lists every parameter.

A first run with the defaults:

{
 "maxItems": 10,
 "query": "solar panel",
 "country": "US",
 "sort": "new"
}

A larger pull:

{
 "maxItems": 200,
 "query": "solar panel",
 "country": "US",
 "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 USPTO PAIR Patent 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 USPTO PAIR 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/uspto-pair-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 search terms are spelled correctly and that your filters are not too restrictive. Try removing the assignee or inventor filter, or broadening your date range, to see if any records match a simpler query first.

The actor returns fewer results than I expected.

The PAIR search interface may return a limited set of results for very broad queries. Try breaking your search into smaller batches by using narrower date ranges or adding more specific keywords.

I get an error when using special characters in my query.

Stick to alphanumeric characters and double quotes for exact phrases. Some special characters may not be handled correctly by the PAIR search backend. Try simplifying your query.

The actor runs but the dataset is empty.

Verify that the country code you selected is valid and that the patent office's PAIR system is accessible. Some non-US offices may have different availability. Try running the same query with the country set to US to confirm the actor is working.

My date filter is not working as expected.

Ensure your dates are in the strict YYYY-MM-DD format. The filter applies to the priority date, not the filing or publication date. If you need to filter by a different date type, you may need to do that in post-processing.

FAQ

Question	Answer
What is USPTO PAIR?	USPTO PAIR (Patent Application Information Retrieval) is the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's public system for viewing the status, documents, and history of published patent applications and granted patents.
Does this scraper require a USPTO API key?	No. This actor reads the public PAIR search interface directly. You do not need to register an application, get an API key, or manage any authentication.
Can I search for patents from countries other than the US?	Yes. The country filter supports over 30 patent offices, including the EPO, WIPO, China, Japan, Korea, Germany, and many more. Leave the country field empty to search worldwide.
What data fields does the actor return?	Each row includes the application number, title, status, assignee, inventor, priority date, filing date, publication date, and other bibliographic details available in the PAIR record.
How do I search for an exact phrase?	Wrap your search terms in double quotes in the query field. For example, "machine learning" will return only records containing that exact phrase.
Can I filter by both assignee and inventor at the same time?	Yes. All filter fields (query, assignee, inventor, country, status, date range, and language) can be combined in a single run to narrow your results precisely.
What is the maximum number of records I can scrape?	You can set the maximum applications field up to 1,000,000 per run. The actor will stop when it reaches that limit or when no more matching records are found.
What export formats are supported?	Your dataset can be exported in CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML format from the Apify platform.
Does this actor get the full patent document or PDF?	This actor collects the bibliographic data and status from the PAIR search results. It does not download the full patent specification PDFs or the file wrapper documents.
Can I schedule this scraper to run automatically?	Yes. Once you have configured the input, you can set up a recurring schedule in Apify to run the actor daily, weekly, or at any custom interval.

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Browse the full ParseForge collection for more scrapers.

🆘 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 U.S. Patent and Trademark 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.