🏛️ USPTO Patent Assignments Scraper

🚀 Export U.S. patent ownership records in seconds. Search every recorded patent assignment by assignee, assignor, patent number, application number, publication number, or reel/frame. Pull conveyance type, the full assignor-to-assignee chain, execution and recorded dates, affected patents, attorney docket numbers, and correspondent metadata.

🕒 Last updated: 2026-05-27 · 📊 19 fields per record · 🇺🇸 USPTO · 🔁 every recorded conveyance · 📅 sortable by execution and recorded date

The USPTO Patent Assignments Scraper queries the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office patent-assignment archive and returns 19 structured fields per record, including the reel/frame identifier, the conveyance text (assignment, security interest, merger, change of name, etc.), the assignor and assignee names with their addresses and countries, the execution and recorded dates, the patent and application numbers affected, the invention titles, filing dates, correspondent name and address, and the attorney docket number.

The catalog covers every patent assignment ever recorded with the USPTO, going back decades. This Actor lets you target by any of six search fields, filter by recorded-date window, choose the sort field (recorded date, execution date, assignee name) and direction, and downloads the result as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML.

🎯 Target Audience	💡 Primary Use Cases
Patent attorneys, M&A diligence teams, litigation support, IP-valuation analysts, journalists, R&D competitive-intelligence groups, startup investors	Ownership-chain reconstruction, security-interest tracking, M&A IP diligence, NPE/troll mapping, patent-portfolio valuation, freedom-to-operate research

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📋 What the USPTO Patent Assignments Scraper does

Six search workflows in a single run:

• 🏢 Assignee Name. Pull every recordation where a company appears as the new owner (e.g. Apple).
• 📤 Assignor Name. Pull every recordation where a company appears as the prior owner.
• 🔢 Patent Number. Every assignment recorded against a specific granted patent.
• 📂 Application Number. Same, scoped to a pending application.
• 📰 Publication Number. Same, scoped to a published application.
• 🎞️ Reel/Frame. Direct lookup of a single recordation by its reel and frame.

Each record carries the reel/frame, the conveyance type (verbatim), the execution date(s), the recorded date, the full assignee and assignor arrays with addresses and countries, every affected patent / application / publication number, the invention titles, the correspondent name and address, the attorney docket, and a direct source URL.

💡 Why it matters: patent ownership rarely matches the named applicant on the issued document. Mergers, security interests, assignments to holdcos, and litigation transfers all flow through this same recordation system. This Actor lets you reconstruct ownership chains and surface security interests for M&A due diligence at scale.

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🎬 Full Demo

🚧 Coming soon: a 3-minute walkthrough showing how to go from sign-up to a downloaded ownership-chain dataset.

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⚙️ Input

Input	Type	Default	Behavior
maxItems	integer	10	Records to return. Free plan caps at 10, paid plan at 1,000,000.
searchField	string	"AssigneeName"	One of `AssigneeName`, `AssignorName`, `PatentNumber`, `ApplicationNumber`, `PublicationNumber`, `ReelFrame`.
searchQuery	string	"Apple"	Value to look up (e.g. `Apple`, `10000000`).
dateFrom	string	""	Recorded-date floor (YYYY-MM-DD).
dateTo	string	""	Recorded-date ceiling (YYYY-MM-DD).
sortField	string	"RecordedDate"	One of `RecordedDate`, `ExecutionDate`, `AssigneeName`.
sortOrder	string	"desc"	`desc` (newest first) or `asc` (oldest first).

Example: 100 most recent Apple assignments.

{
    "maxItems": 100,
    "searchField": "AssigneeName",
    "searchQuery": "Apple",
    "sortField": "RecordedDate",
    "sortOrder": "desc"
}

Example: ownership history of patent 10000000.

{
    "maxItems": 50,
    "searchField": "PatentNumber",
    "searchQuery": "10000000",
    "sortField": "ExecutionDate",
    "sortOrder": "asc"
}

⚠️ Good to Know: the USPTO recordation system records what parties submit. Names sometimes appear with multiple spellings (e.g. "Apple Inc.", "Apple, Inc.", "APPLE INC"). For exhaustive ownership reconstruction, run the Actor with each name variant and union the dataset downstream. Use the reelFrame field as the primary key.

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📊 Output

Each assignment record contains 19 fields. Download the dataset as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML.

🧾 Schema

Field	Type	Example
🎞️ reelFrame	string	"055000/0123"
📜 conveyanceText	string | null	"ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)."
📅 recordedDate	string	"2024-03-12"
🗓️ executionDate	string | null	"2024-02-28"
🗓️ executionDates	string[]	["2024-02-28", "2024-03-01"]
🏢 assignees	string[]	["APPLE INC."]
🏠 assigneeAddresses	string[]	["ONE APPLE PARK WAY"]
🌎 assigneeCountries	string[]	["UNITED STATES"]
📤 assignors	string[]	["SMITH, JANE", "DOE, JOHN"]
🗓️ assignorExecutionDates	string[]	["2024-02-28", "2024-03-01"]
📜 patentNumbers	string[]	["10000000"]
📂 applicationNumbers	string[]	["14484000"]
📰 publicationNumbers	string[]	["20160077000"]
🏷️ inventionTitles	string[]	["Coherent LADAR Using Intra-Pixel Quadrature Detection"]
📅 filingDates	string[]	["2014-09-12"]
📅 publicationDates	string[]	["2016-03-17"]
👤 correspondentName	string | null	"APPLE INC. - IP COUNSEL"
🏠 correspondentAddress	string | null	"ONE APPLE PARK WAY, CUPERTINO, CA 95014"
🪪 attorneyDocketNumber	string | null	"P12345US01"
🔗 sourceUrl	string	"https://assignment.uspto.gov/..."
🕒 scrapedAt	ISO 8601	"2026-05-27T00:00:00.000Z"

📦 Sample records

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✨ Why choose this Actor

	Capability
🏛️	Official source. USPTO patent-assignment archive. Same records cited in M&A diligence and litigation.
🧩	Six search fields. Assignee, assignor, patent, application, publication, reel/frame.
📜	Conveyance type included. Assignment, security interest, merger, change of name, all verbatim.
👥	Full party arrays. Every assignor and every assignee, with addresses and countries.
📅	Date-range scoping. Restrict by recorded-date window for cohort analysis.
🔁	Always fresh. Every run hits the live USPTO recordation feed.
🚫	No paid subscription. Public open-data records only.

📊 Ownership chains are buried in tens of millions of recordations. Surface them at scale and you find the M&A signals before the rumor mill does.

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📈 How it compares to alternatives

Approach	Cost	Coverage	Refresh	Filters	Setup
⭐ USPTO Patent Assignments Scraper (this Actor)	$5 free credit, then pay-per-use	Every recorded assignment	Live per run	6 search fields + date range	⚡ 2 min
Direct USPTO Assignment Search portal	Free	Same	Live	UI-driven	🐢 Manual per query
IP analytics SaaS (Innography, PatSnap)	$10,000+/year	Same + extras	Daily	Many	⏳ Sales cycle
Manual PDF download	Free	All	Live	None	🐢 No automation

Pick this Actor when you need batch-scale ownership analytics without the SaaS overhead.

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🚀 How to use

1. 📝 Sign up. Create a free account with $5 credit (takes 2 minutes).
2. 🌐 Open the Actor. Go to the USPTO Patent Assignments Scraper page on the Apify Store.
3. 🎯 Set input. Pick a search field, enter the query, set the date range and sort, set maxItems.
4. 🚀 Run it. Click Start and let the Actor collect your data.
5. 📥 Download. Grab your results in the Dataset tab as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML.

⏱️ Total time from signup to downloaded dataset: 3-5 minutes. No coding required.

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💼 Business use cases

⚖️ M&A and corporate diligence Reconstruct IP ownership chains pre-acquisition Spot encumbered patents under security interest Audit assignor-to-assignee paper trails Validate freedom-to-operate against current owner	💼 Patent law firms New-client conflict checks via assignee lookups Litigation evidence on chain-of-title gaps Ownership recordation deadlines tracker Portfolio-level monitoring of competitor moves
📈 Investment & competitive intelligence NPE/PAE patent-acquisition monitoring Track patent flows out of bankrupt entities Spot stealth-mode startups via IP recordations Build holdco-to-operating-company maps	📰 Journalism & policy research Investigative pieces on patent-troll consolidation Coverage of strategic-IP M&A activity Policy research on standard-essential patent flows Data-driven coverage of bankruptcy-era IP sales

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🔌 Automating USPTO Patent Assignments Scraper

Control the scraper programmatically for scheduled runs and pipeline integrations:

• 🟢 Node.js. Install the apify-client NPM package.
• 🐍 Python. Use the apify-client PyPI package.
• 📚 See the Apify API documentation for full details.

The Apify Schedules feature lets you trigger this Actor on any cron interval. A daily refresh on a tracked assignee surfaces new IP-acquisition signals before any newsletter does.

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🌟 Beyond business use cases

Data like this powers more than commercial workflows. The same structured records support research, education, civic projects, and personal initiatives.

🎓 Research and academia Law-and-economics papers on IP-asset flows Innovation-studies theses on industry consolidation Reproducible studies citing versioned recordation pulls Cross-disciplinary mapping of inventor-to-company transitions	🎨 Personal and creative Visualizations of "where do patents go to die?" Personal blogs on famous IP-acquisition stories Hobbyist databases for inventors and historians Newsletters on patent-flow trends in a tech area
🤝 Non-profit and civic Open-data projects exposing patent-troll consolidation Public-interest tech tracking pharma patent shuffles Education non-profits making IP transparent Investigative-journalism support for patent reform	🧪 Experimentation Train NER models on assignor/assignee party names Benchmark entity-resolution systems against real recordations Prototype graph-based ownership-chain explorers Test agent pipelines that summarize IP M&A activity

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🤖 Ask an AI assistant about this scraper

Open a ready-to-send prompt about this ParseForge actor in the AI of your choice:

• 💬 ChatGPT
• 🧠 Claude
• 🔍 Perplexity
• 🅒 Copilot

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❓ Frequently Asked Questions

🧩 How does it work?

You pick a search field (assignee, assignor, patent, application, publication, or reel/frame), enter a query, and click Start. The Actor calls the USPTO patent-assignment archive, paginates through results, and emits one clean JSON record per recordation.

🏢 Why do company names appear with different spellings?

USPTO records the name as filed. Mergers, name changes, and clerical variations all flow through. For exhaustive ownership reconstruction, query each name variant and union the results.

📜 What is conveyanceText?

The verbatim conveyance type from the recordation: assignment of assignor's interest, security interest, merger, change of name, license, etc. It's the most important field for understanding what the recordation actually did.

🎞️ What is reel/frame?

The unique recordation identifier USPTO uses to address each filing. Use it as a primary key when joining downstream.

📅 How recent is the data?

The archive updates within days of new recordations being processed. Every run fetches the live feed, so your dataset is current at run time.

🔢 Can I look up an assignment by patent number?

Yes. Set searchField to PatentNumber and pass the granted patent number (e.g. 10000000). The Actor returns every recordation that touches that patent.

⏰ Can I schedule regular runs?

Yes. Use Apify Schedules to run this Actor on any cron interval. A daily refresh on a tracked assignee surfaces new acquisitions before they hit the press.

⚖️ Is this data legal to use?

Yes. USPTO patent assignments are public records published by the U.S. federal government, freely usable for research, analytics, commercial products, and journalism.

💳 Do I need a paid Apify plan?

No. The free Apify plan is enough for testing and small runs (10 records). A paid plan lifts the limit and gives you scheduling, higher concurrency, and larger datasets.

🔁 What happens if a run fails?

The Actor retries transient errors and rotates outbound connections. If a run still fails, the dataset includes a clean { error: ... } record explaining the issue.

🆘 What if I need help?

Contact us through the Apify platform or use the Tally form linked below.

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🔌 Integrate with any app

USPTO Patent Assignments Scraper connects to any cloud service via Apify integrations:

• Make - Automate multi-step workflows
• Zapier - Connect with 5,000+ apps
• Slack - Get run notifications in your channels
• Airbyte - Pipe assignment data into your warehouse
• GitHub - Trigger runs from commits and releases
• Google Drive - Export datasets straight to Sheets

You can also use webhooks to trigger downstream actions when a run finishes. Push fresh assignment records into your IP-analytics stack, or alert your team in Slack when a tracked entity records a new conveyance.

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💡 Pro Tip: browse the complete ParseForge collection for more IP, government, and reference-data scrapers.

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🆘 Need Help? Open our contact form to request a new scraper, propose a custom data project, or report an issue.

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⚠️ Disclaimer: this Actor is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. All trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners. Only publicly available open-data patent-assignment records are collected.