# Google Patents Search Scraper - Patents, Assignees & Dates (`xtracto/google-patents-search`) Actor

Search Google Patents and get structured results: title, publication number, assignee, inventor, filing/grant/priority dates, snippet and PDF link. Supports Google's own filter syntax (assignee, country, priority date). HTTP-only, no API key.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/xtracto/google-patents-search.md
- **Developed by:** [Farhan Febrian Nauval](https://apify.com/xtracto) (community)
- **Categories:** Other
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $3.34 / 1,000 results

This Actor is paid per event and usage. You are charged both the fixed price for specific events and for Apify platform usage.
Since this Actor supports Apify Store discounts, the price gets lower the higher subscription plan you have.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

An Actor is a serverless cloud program that runs on the Apify platform. It has two run modes.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.

Apify vocabulary and the platform model are defined once, in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md.

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.

Do not guess an integration path. Every one of them is in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md: the Apify MCP server, Agent Skills with the Apify CLI, the JavaScript and Python clients, the REST API, and the account-free path for an agent with no human to sign in. It also carries the rule on stating cost before the first paid run.

For examples already wired to this Actor's own input schema, see the [API](#api) section below.

Each client library has reference documentation the quickstart does not restate: [JavaScript/TypeScript](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md) (`npm install apify-client`) and [Python](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md) (`pip install apify-client`).

# README

## Google Patents Search Scraper

Search Google Patents and get structured results: title, publication number, assignee, inventor,
filing / grant / priority dates, snippet and PDF link. HTTP-only, no API key, no account.

### Input

| Field | Type | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| `queries` | array | *required* | A keyword, a Google Patents query string, or a pasted URL |
| `maxResultsPerQuery` | integer | `300` | Ceiling is ~1,000 — see below |
| `maxPages` | integer | `10` | Pages of 100. Cannot exceed 10 (Google's limit) |
| `maxConcurrency` | integer | `2` | Queries in parallel |

All three input shapes work, because all three are things you actually have to hand:

```
battery
q=battery&assignee=Tesla&after=priority:20230101
https://patents.google.com/?q=solar&country=US
```

**Google's own filter syntax passes straight through** — `assignee=`, `country=`,
`before=`/`after=priority:YYYYMMDD`, `inventor=`. Build the search in the browser, paste the URL.

### Output

```jsonc
{
  "_input": "q=battery&assignee=Tesla",
  "_source": "S1-xhr-query",
  "_scrapedAt": "2026-09-07T05:46:13Z",
  "_page": 0,

  "publicationNumber": "US11942620B2",
  "patentUrl": "https://patents.google.com/patent/US11942620B2/en",
  "title": "Solid state battery with uniformly distributed electrolyte…",
  "snippet": "…",
  "assignee": "GM Global Technology Operations LLC",
  "inventor": "…",
  "filingDate": "2021-12-06", "grantDate": "2024-03-26",
  "publicationDate": "…", "priorityDate": "…",
  "pdfUrl": "https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/…",
  "figureCount": 7, "rank": 0,
  "patent": { … }          // raw passthrough, Google's field names verbatim
}
```

Populated on 450 test rows: publication number, title, assignee, inventor, filing date,
priority date and URL on **450/450**. `grantDate` (272/450) and `pdfUrl` (332/450) are
legitimately partial — a pending application has no grant date.

### How it works

`patents.google.com/xhr/query` is the JSON backend behind the search UI. Its single `url`
parameter takes the URL-encoded Google Patents query string, which is why this actor can accept
a pasted browser URL unchanged.

#### The 10-page ceiling

`total_num_pages` comes back as **10** for a query reporting **106,876** results. It is a cap,
not a count: at 100 per page that is roughly **1,000 results per query**, whatever the hit count
says. The actor warns once per query when it sees the cap and names the filters that get you
past it. A Tesla battery query yielded 856 unique patents out of 3,427 reported.

#### Titles come with markup and entities

Google marks query hits with `<b>…</b>` and leaves HTML entities in place, so a raw title reads
`Solid state <b>battery</b>, and methods of &hellip;`. Both are cleaned — tags stripped, then
entities unescaped, in that order — and the untouched value stays available under `patent`.
Stripping only the tags leaves `&hellip;` sitting in the title, which is the kind of thing that
survives review and shows up in a customer's CSV.

#### Result order drifts between requests

Two fetches of the same page can come back in slightly different order, so consecutive pages
sometimes appear to overlap. Results are deduplicated by publication number, and a page that
contributes nothing new ends the crawl — so the drift costs a little bandwidth and never
duplicates a row.

### Known limits

| Limit | Detail |
|---|---|
| ~1,000 results per query | Google's paging ceiling; narrow with its filters and pass several queries |
| No full text or claims | Search results only — the description and claims live on the patent page |
| No citation graph | `patent.family_metadata` is passed through, but citations are not in this payload |

# Actor input Schema

## `queries` (type: `array`):

A keyword (battery), a Google Patents query string (q=battery\&assignee=Tesla\&after=priority:20230101), or a pasted patents.google.com URL. Google's own filter syntax works as-is.

## `maxResultsPerQuery` (type: `integer`):

Google Patents pages only 10 deep at 100 results a page, so ~1,000 is the hard ceiling per query no matter how many hits it reports. For more, split the query with filters.

## `maxPages` (type: `integer`):

Pages of 100 results. Cannot exceed 10 - that is Google's limit, not the actor's.

## `maxConcurrency` (type: `integer`):

Queries in parallel; pages within a query stay sequential.

## `proxyConfiguration` (type: `object`):

Recommended - Google rate-limits a hot IP.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "queries": [
    "solid state battery",
    "q=solar&country=US&after=priority:20220101"
  ],
  "maxResultsPerQuery": 300,
  "maxPages": 10,
  "maxConcurrency": 2,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true
  }
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `patents` (type: `string`):

Dataset items shown in the 'Patents' view.

## `items` (type: `string`):

Every record this run produced, with all fields, as JSON.

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "queries": [
        "q=battery&assignee=Tesla"
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("xtracto/google-patents-search").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = { "queries": ["q=battery&assignee=Tesla"] }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("xtracto/google-patents-search").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "queries": [
    "q=battery&assignee=Tesla"
  ]
}' |
apify call xtracto/google-patents-search --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,xtracto/google-patents-search"
        }
    }
}
```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/eyplVu29DoravTQff/builds/QOa2iUCW196Un0e6s/openapi.json