Classifications Endpoints Bug Fixes​

• The 500: Internal Server Error that occurred during most requests to the following endpoints has been fixed:

  • cpc_subclass
  • uspc_mainclass
  • uspc_subclass
  • wipo

• documentation of the classification endpoints has been adjusted for consistency across sources.

Missing/Unrecognized/Broken Fields Fixed​

Some documented fields that were not appearing in responses have been fixed:

• {patent/publication}.ipcr.ipc_id

Some documented fields that were rejected as invalid have been fixed:

• uspc_subclass.uspc_mainclass
• pg_claim.claim_dependent
• location.location_place_type
• location.location_num_assignees
• location.location_num_inventors
• location.location_num_patents

Some documented fields that previously caused requests to fail have been fixed:

• publication.granted_pregrant_crosswalk.current_patent_id_flag
• publication.granted_pregrant_crosswalk.current_document_number_flag

Nested Hyperlinked fields​

the nested fields {patent/publication}.uspc_at_issue and patent.wipo have been updated to include links to their respective classification lookup endpoints.

Other Minor Bug Fixes​

• publication.rule_47_flag will now be returned as a boolean instead of a string.

Data Update: 2/5/2025​

The PatentSearch API is updated to contain data through 12/31/2024.

Default sorting behavior reverted and pad_patent_id option added​

This update reverses the change to default sorting behavior that was introduced in v2.2.0, based on user feedback that this change created difficulty and opacity with the intended function of the pagination features.
The v2.2.0 update included an adjustment to the way results sorted on the field "patent_id" were ordered. Patents with IDs shorter than 8 characters were front-padded with zeroes during sorting so that numerically smaller IDs would always be sorted before numerically larger IDs. The copy of patent_id displayed in the query results was left unpadded for consistency with other PatentsView and USPTO data products. However, this mismatch between the padded sorting version and the unpadded display version of patent_id, along with insufficient communication about this change, created unnecessary complication with using the "after" option for pagination.
In this new update, all instances of patent_id will be unpadded by default, and a new optional "options" parameter "pad_patent_id" is provided to users on endpoints that include patent_id as a field. This option is treated as false by default, and users may set this option to true to obtain the more intiutive numeric sorting behavior and simultaneously set the query interpreter and results formatter to use the padded form of the patent_id to facilitate pagination.
For more details, please see our updated Options documentation

Withdrawn patents now hidden by default in the patents endpoint​

Data for withdrawn patents can be shown by setting the new optional "options" parameter "exclude_withdrawn" to false. For more details, please see our updated Options documentation

Fields added/updated:​

Added:​

• {patent/publication}.inventors.inventor_location_id
• {patent/publication}.inventors.inventor_gender_code
• {patent/publication}.assignees.assignee_location_id
• patent.withdrawn

Updated:​

• {patent/publication}.inventors.inventor_id
• {patent/publication}.assignees.assignee_id

Previously, requesting these fields would only return the URL to retrieve the corresponding record from the inventors/assignees endpoint under the label "inventor" or "assignee". Now, in addition to this value, the unmodified ID will be returned under the label "inventor_id"/"assignee_id"

Bug fixes​

• a bug where the "options" parameter was ignored when the "fields" or "sort" parameter was omitted in POST requests has been fixed.
• a bug where the IPC endpoint would fail when receiving a POST request from certain sources including the Python Requests package has been fixed.
• a bug where the nested fields inventors.inventor_years and assignees.assignee_years were incorrectly flagged as non-nested fields has been fixed.
• certain fields which were inconsistently formatted across mutliple endpoints in which they appeared have been standardized

Documentation Updates​

• added documentation of new fields
• added documentation of new options "exclude_withdrawn" and "pad_patent_id"

Data Update: 11/6/2024​

The PatentSearch API is updated to contain data through 09/30/2024.

Updated Text Endpoints​

For clarity and efficiency, granted and pre-grant text endpoints have been separated.
Granted text data can be retrieved at /api/v1/g_brf_sum_text/, etc.
Pre-grant text data can be retrieved at /api/v1/pg_brf_sum_text/, etc.
The json keys for these endpoints' responses have been updated correspondingly to g_brf_sum_texts, etc.

Related Applications Response Schema Adjusted​

For consistency with other endpoints, responses from the /api/v1/publication/rel_app_text endpoint will now be delivered under the json key "rel_app_texts" instead of "rel_app_text_publications".

Bug Fixes​

• An internal sorting field "patent_id_zero_prefix" that was previously available in the public endpoints has been removed.
• Sorting behavior for patents with inconsistently zero-padded IDs has been fixed.
• The endpoint for "other references", previously inaccessible, has been fixed. The endpoint address has been corrected from "api/v1/patent/otherreference" to "api/v1/patent/other_reference" for consistency with other endpoints.
• A bug preventing successful GET requests to the "ipc" endpoint has been corrected. Some POST requests may still produce internal errors.
• The fields location_latitude and location_longitude in the "locations" endpoint, which were previously inaccessible, have been fixed.

Documentation Updates​

• Documentation has been added for the updated text endpoints.
• The expected json key for each endpoint has been added to the field list documentation on the reference page.
• Several typos have been corrected.
• Minor section ordering adjustments.
• A social media preview image has been added to the documentation pages.

Naming Update​

PatentsView's Search API is now the PatentSearch API!
The new name was selected to improve the findability of the tool and better reflect both the API's purpose to provide patent data and the Elasticsearch technology that it leverages.
The naming used in existing documenation and release notes has been updated to reflect this name change and provide consistency.

Data Update 08/23/2024​

The PatentSearch API is updated to contain data through 06/30/2024.

API Key Request Streamlining​

backend improvements to key-request workflow to improve response time and findability.

Bug Fixes and Documentation Corrections​

• invalid default sorting arguments in swagger have been corrected.
• some attorney fields that did not match documenation have been corrected

New fields in Publications Endpoint​

The following fields have been added to the publications endpoint:

• "us-parties" sub-entity with sub-fields:
  • us_party_type
  • us_party_designation
  • location_id
  • us_party_name_first
  • us_party_name_last
  • us_party_organization
  • us_party_sequence
  • applicant_authority
• cpc_at_issue.action_date
• foreign_priority.priority_claim_sequence
• granted_pregrant_crosswalk.current_patent_id_flag
• granted_pregrant_crosswalk.current_pgpub_id_flag
• ipcr.ipc_class_level
• ipcr.ipc_class_status
• pct_data.filed country
• us_related_documents.related_doc_sequence
• wipo.wipo_sector_title

Fields re-named​

The following fields in the publications endpoint have had their names changed for consistency with other PatentsView Data:

• pct_data.pct_371c124_date -> pct_data.pct_371_date
• pct_data.pct_371c12_date -> pct_data.pct_102_date

Bug fixes​

• a bug preventing the correct functionality of the "Try it out" feature on the /api/v1/inventor/{inventor_id}/ and /api/v1/location/{location_id}/ endpoints has been fixed.

Long text data notes​

• The PatentSearch API now contains four new endpoints for long text data: brf_sum_text, claims, draw_desc_text and detail_desc text.
• These endpoints are currently in beta phase. i.e. please expect the structure and dataset included to change over the next few releases
  • Currently, only 2023 data is available. Over the next few release, we'd be backfilling older data few years at a time. You can track the status on this page
• Please see endpoint reference

Data update: 02/13/2024​

The PatentSearch API is updated to contain data through 12/31/2023.

Publication Endpoints​

Two new endpoints have been added.

• /api/v1/publication : containting pregrant publication data
• /api/v1/publication/rel_app_text: containing related application data for pregrant publications

See PatentSearch API Reference for field list reference

Documentation and User Resources​

The API Development team has developed a few resources for better communicating changes and updates relating to the PatentSearch API to users:

• PatentSearch API Reference contains the full PatentSearch API specification. This supersedes any information on the previous version
• A "service" status page to keep users informed of the status of various tools
• This page where updates to the PatentSearch API will be shared with users.

The users are, of course, always welcome to reach out via the PatentsView Help Center

Bug Fixes​

_contains operator​

Previously, the "_contains" operator

• resulted in 500 server error if a list is supplied as the value.
• produced incorrect results when the supplied value contained whitespaces.

This has been fixed and as a result of the fix the "contains" operator will now:

• correctly account for spaces in the operator argument
• permit lists as arguments (listed arguments will use "or" logic)

Other developer notes​

• What's with v2.0?

  • Internally, the PatentsView team referred to the release that included pre-grant publications as v2.0 and the name stuck.

• Does that mean the url will change?

  • No. We intend to keep the /api/v1 part of the API endpoint URLs as it stands.

• What is happening with text data?

  • Because of its size, the long text data posed some challenges when integrating with the PatentSearch API. We are working to resolve those issues, and expect that text data will be available via the PatentSearch API within the next few releases.

Note: The below endpoints are made active without complete data. They are included in the documentation in the interest of providing complete list of data elements that will available soon. The status will be updated as when the data load for the endpoint becomes complete.

• Brief Summary Text (Data Load in progress)
• Claims (Data Load in progress)
• Detail Description Text (Data Load in progress)
• Drawing Description Text (Data Load in progress)