Google Patents

Search and retrieve patent data via SerpApi. Requires SERPAPIAPIKEY env var (free: 100/month at serpapi.com).

5 Commands

CODEBLOCK0

Patent ID: short US11734097B1 or full patent/US11734097B1/en. Supports all countries: CN, US, EP, JP, KR, WO, DE, etc.

Search Options

CODEBLOCK1

Boolean: "(massage) AND (glove OR mitt)" | Multi-term + CPC: INLINECODE3

What Each Command Returns

search: patentid, title, snippet, assignee, inventor, dates, pdf, countrystatus
detail: title, abstract, claims[], inventors[], assignees[], classifications[], legalevents[], citations, similardocuments[], images[], pdf, familyid, worldwideapplications
fulltext: description full text (FIELD OF INVENTION, BACKGROUND, SUMMARY, DETAILED DESCRIPTION)
full: Everything from detail + description_full combined
pdf: Downloads PDF file to specified path

E-commerce Scenarios

CODEBLOCK2

Error Handling

All errors return JSON with error and code fields. No exceptions thrown.

Auto-retry: 3 attempts with exponential backoff (2s, 4s, 8s) on 429/5xx errors.
Rate limit: 1 second between requests to avoid triggering anti-scraping.
Timeouts: 10s connect, 30s max per request, 60s for PDF downloads.

FAQ

Q: Why are some fields empty?
A: Different countries have different patent page formats. Some patents may have incomplete data, or the description may not be digitized.

Q: Can I batch-fetch patents?
A: Yes, loop through IDs. Respect the 1s rate limit. Free tier = 100 calls/month. Cached results (same query within 1h) are free.

Q: How to get PDF?
A: INLINECODE6

Q: Chinese vs English patents?
A: Chinese pages (patent/CNxxxxxx/zh) have native Chinese content. English pages have machine-translated content. Use --language CHINESE for search.

Q: Patent ID formats?
A: Country code + number + type suffix. Examples: CN106484775A, US20180232442A1, EP2264377A2, USD975937S1 (design), JP2020123456A.