USPTO Patent Search & Changes Feed

Clean, flat U.S. patent records from the official USPTO Open Data Portal API. Filter by keyword, CPC class, inventor, assignee, application type, status, and grant-date window, get one useful row per patent, and run a changes-only mode that returns just what is new, newly granted, status-changed, or updated since your last run.

You pay only for a delivered patent record. Filtered-out rows, unchanged rows in changes mode, and malformed records cost nothing.

No API key needed

The USPTO Open Data Portal API requires a key. The actor supplies one, so there is nothing to sign up for and nothing to paste. Start a run and you get rows.

If you would rather run under your own USPTO.gov account and its own rate limit, request a key at https://data.uspto.gov and paste it into the apiKey input; the run uses yours instead. Either way the key is stored as a secret and is never written to the dataset or the log.

The records themselves are public-domain federal records, and the key is the Office's own free access control, not a paywall.

What a record is

One flat row per patent, pulled from the USPTO patent file-wrapper record:

• identity: applicationNumber, patentNumber (null until granted), source URL
• title and type: title, applicationType (Utility, Design, Plant, Reissue)
• status and timeline: status, statusDate, grantDate, filingDate, publicationNumber, publicationDate
• people: firstInventor, inventors, assignee, applicants
• classification: cpcClasses (Cooperative Patent Classification), groupArtUnit, examiner
• other: publicationCategory, entityStatus (Regular, Small, Micro)
• provenance: sourceUrl, retrievedAt, confidence, jurisdiction, dataSource, and in changes mode changeType

Every value appears verbatim in the USPTO record. Nothing is guessed.

A note on abstracts

The USPTO search endpoint returns bibliographic front-page data, not the patent abstract or full text. So this feed carries the title, the people, the classification, and the dates, and it does not carry an abstract. The sourceUrl on every row links to the patent's own page, where the abstract and full text are available. We would rather link you to the real abstract than synthesize one.

Sample output

A real record returned by the USPTO API (granted utility patent), flattened:

patentNumber	title	applicationType	grantDate	entityStatus	sourceUrl
12000000	Antibody formulations	Utility	2024-06-04	Regular Undiscounted	patents.google.com/patent/US12000000

Each row also carries applicationNumber, filingDate, inventors, assignee, CPC classes, art unit, and examiner when the record provides them.

Two modes

• full: every patent matching your filter.
• changes: only records that are new, newly granted, status-changed, or carry a newer status date since this account's last run. The state is tracked per account in a named store, so it is your timeline. The first changes run has no baseline, so it returns everything matching once, then tracks deltas from there.

Filters

• keyword: free-text across the record (supports AND, OR, NOT, quotes, and *).
• cpcClasses: keep only patents in these CPC codes (for example A61K, G06N, H04L).
• inventor: keep only patents naming this inventor.
• assignee: keep only patents whose applicant or owner matches this name.
• applicationTypes: Utility, Design, Plant, Reissue.
• statuses: application status (for example Patented Case, Abandoned).
• grantDateFrom / grantDateTo: bound the grant-date window (YYYY-MM-DD).
• grantedOnly: deliver only granted patents (on by default), or include pending applications.
• sortOrder: newest or oldest grant date first.
• maxRecords: a cap on how many records a run delivers and bills. 0 means no cap; the platform spend cap is honored regardless.

Keyword, CPC, inventor, assignee, type, status, and grant date are applied by the API; granted-only is re-checked on the returned record.

What to expect

• The USPTO holds millions of patents and applications, refreshed daily. A filter narrows that to the slice you care about.
• The raw API is public and free directly from the USPTO with a key of your own. What this actor sells is the flat, joined record, the filtering, and the per-account change feed, so you do not have to page the API, walk the nested JSON, or diff it yourself.
• The API returns up to 100 records per page and reaches the first 10,000 results of a query; narrow the filter (tighter dates, a CPC class, an assignee) to reach deeper.
• A focused watch is a few dollars; a daily changes feed is pennies a run.

Source and scope

• Source: the official USPTO Open Data Portal Patent File Wrapper search API (api.uspto.gov), the successor to the retired PatentsView API. Public-domain U.S. federal records, accessed with a declared identifying User-Agent and a USPTO API key.
• Scope: United States patent records. Each row is stamped jurisdiction=US and dataSource=USPTO Open Data Portal.
• This is a data tool, not legal advice. A patent record is a public filing, not a freedom-to-operate opinion.

See also

More clean, pay-only-for-results data tools from Pono Data:

• Clinical Trials Feed - studies, sponsors, and changes from ClinicalTrials.gov
• Federal Spending Feed - federal awards from USAspending.gov

Full catalog: https://apify.com/thoob