Google Patents Search Scraper

Google Patents Search Scraper: patent search results as rows, no API key

Search Google Patents the way you would on the site, by keyword, quoted phrase, classification code, inventor, assignee, office, language, grant status or date range, and get one row per patent: publication number, title, assignee, first inventor, all four dates, grant status, legal status, and links to the page and the PDF.

The part to read before buying: these are search results, not patent documents. You get what the results list carries plus an abstract snippet. No claims, no full description, no citation list, no family tree, no downloaded PDF, only the link to each one. And Google hands over at most 1,000 results for any single search, whatever match count it reports. If either of those is a problem, this is the wrong tool.

🔍 What Google Patents Search Scraper does

It runs the same search grammar the website gives you, pages the results, and writes one row per patent.

Search on terms alone, on an inventor or assignee alone, or both together. A classification code works as a term: put H01M10/0525 in queries. The filters for office, language, status, type, litigation and dates apply to every search in the run.

If a search is fiddly, build it on patents.google.com until the results look right and paste the address bar into searchUrls. It runs exactly as written.

Two things happen before a row reaches you. It is checked against the filters you asked for and dropped, uncharged, if it does not match. And a publication number already seen in the run is skipped, so a patent matching two terms arrives once.

📥 What you give it

{
  "queries": ["solid state battery", "lithium metal anode"],
  "countries": ["US", "EP"],
  "status": "GRANT",
  "dateType": "priority",
  "dateFrom": "2020-01-01",
  "maxItems": 200
}

Unrecognised filter values are dropped, not refused. An office code outside the 52 it knows, or a date it cannot read, is simply left out, and the search then runs wider than you meant. UK is not a code, GB is. Dates want 2020-01-01, 2020-01 or 2020.

A pasted searchUrls query is not re-checked, because its filters were not built here. Its rows arrive as Google returned them.

📤 What you get back

A real row from a recent run, with the long text trimmed:

{
  "ok": true,
  "recordType": "patent",
  "query": "solid state battery",
  "publicationNumber": "US11942620B2",
  "title": "Solid state battery with uniformly distributed electrolyte, and methods of ...",
  "assignee": "GM Global Technology Operations LLC",
  "inventor": "Yong Lu",
  "priorityDate": "2020-12-07",
  "filingDate": "2021-12-06",
  "publicationDate": "2024-03-26",
  "grantDate": "2024-03-26",
  "isGranted": true,
  "legalStatus": "ACTIVE",
  "patentUrl": "https://patents.google.com/patent/US11942620B2/en",
  "pdfUrl": "https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/f8/02/22/a9e3950cab3340/US11942620.pdf",
  "snippet": "In the instances of solid-state batteries, which include solid-state electrolyte layers disposed between solid-state electrodes, the solid-state electrolyte layer physically separates the solid-state electrodes ...",
  "thumbnailUrl": "https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/90/b8/0e/ed6c106ab89ebf/US11942620-20240326-D00000.png",
  "figureCount": 12,
  "resultRank": 0,
  "resultPage": 0,
  "totalResultsEstimate": 98504,
  "scrapedAt": "2026-09-21T02:09:51.306Z"
}

🧾 Reading the output

Three kinds of row can land in your dataset.

Filter on _sample and _diagnostic, not on recordType. The free sample row also carries recordType: "patent", so a filter on that alone keeps it.

▶️ How to run it

1. Open Google Patents Search Scraper and click Try for free. 2. Put your terms into Search terms, deleting the example. Or fill in Inventor or Assignee and leave the terms empty. 3. Narrow it with Patent offices, Grant status and a date range, and check Which date to filter on is the one you mean. 4. Set Maximum patents. Start at 20 while you see whether the search is right. Then click Start. 5. Download the dataset as JSON, CSV or Excel, or read it from the Apify API.

💰 How much does it cost?

$1.85 per 1,000 patents. Flat on every Apify plan, no volume tiers.

One row is one patent. Sample rows, diagnostic rows, the notice telling you a search hit the 1,000-result wall, duplicates already returned earlier in the run, and rows dropped for not matching your filters are all free. A search that matches nothing costs nothing.

💡 What people use it for

• Prior-art sweeps before filing: run the idea three or four ways and read one deduped shortlist.
• Watching what a competitor's R&D is filing. Set assignee, sort newest first, schedule it weekly

and diff on publication number.

• Mapping a technology area by classification code, then counting filings per year off the dates.
• Due diligence before an acquisition: everything a company has filed, with grant and legal status,

in one table.

• Finding who actually works in a field by pulling a few hundred rows and grouping by inventor.

🚧 What it does not do

• Search results only. No claims, no description, no citations, no family tree and no downloaded

PDF. Every row carries the link, and you open it for the rest.

• 1,000 results per search, whatever the match count says. Split by year, office, assignee or

grant status to reach past it. A search that hits the wall gets a free notice row saying so.

• The snippet is an extract, chosen by Google around your search term, not the full abstract.
• Only the first named inventor is in the results list, so that is all a row can carry.
• legalStatus is a family-level summary. ACTIVE means in force somewhere, not everywhere, and

it is not a legal opinion.

• Foreign-language titles and abstracts are Google's machine translations, and inventor and

assignee names stay in the original script.

• Sorting changes which 1,000 you see on a broad search, and there is no paging past them.
• Design patents carry sparse metadata, often no assignee and no snippet, because that is what

the source publishes.

🧭 Which research scraper do you need?

❓ Questions people ask

Do I need a Google account or an API key? No. Nothing to sign up for and no quota.

Can I search by CPC classification code? Yes, put it in queries like any other term, for example H01M10/0525. It is not a separate field because Google Patents does not treat it as one.

I asked for 5,000 rows on one term and got 1,000. Why? That is Google's ceiling for a single search and it applies to everyone. You will have a free notice row saying so. Split the search by year, office or assignee.

Why does my date range look like it did nothing? Usually the wrong dateType: priority, filing and publication dates on one patent can be years apart. The other cause is a date format the run could not read, which drops that bound.

Can I paste a search I already built on the website? Yes. Put the address bar into searchUrls. Its filters are used as they are, which is the easiest way to run something complicated.

Is this legal? Patent records are public documents and Google Patents is a public index. Apify's write-up on scraping and the law is a good starting point, and we are not lawyers.

🆘 If something breaks

Open the Issues tab on the actor page. Send the search you ran and the run ID. The errorCode and details on the diagnostic row usually name the problem on their own.