| name | patent-search |
| description | Prior art patent search via Google Patents' JSON endpoint and Lens.org, with PDF download. Use when the user asks to search patents, prior art, "anterioridad", "patentes ancla", freedom-to-operate, novelty context, or patent landscaping. Covers query syntax, CPC filtering, date/status filters, anchor-patent matrices, and downloading patent PDFs. |
Patent Search (Google Patents + Lens.org)
Google Patents — JSON endpoint (no key)
https://patents.google.com/xhr/query?url=<ENCODED>&exp=
<ENCODED> is a query string (q=...&num=50&page=0...) URL-encoded twice for the q value: encode the query text as a component, prepend q=, then encode the whole thing again as the url parameter value. In Python:
inner = "q=" + urllib.parse.quote(query, safe="") + "&num=50&page=0"
full = "https://patents.google.com/xhr/query?url=" + urllib.parse.quote(inner, safe="") + "&exp="
Query syntax (same as patents.google.com search box):
- Juxtaposition = AND:
(wearable) (emotion) · OR explicit · quoted phrases
CPC=A61B5/165 (classification; A61B5/165 = evaluating emotional/psychological state), country:US, status:GRANT, type:PATENT, assignee:Empatica, inventor:...- Date params go in the inner query string, not in q:
&before=priority:20180101, &after=priority:20000101, &sort=new|old (omit for relevance)
- For prior art searches do NOT lower-bound the date — anything published before the priority date counts.
Response: .results.total_num_results and .results.cluster[].result[], each with .patent.{publication_number,title,snippet,assignee,inventor,priority_date,filing_date,grant_date,publication_date,pdf,family_metadata}. num caps at 100/page, page for paging. Titles/snippets carry <b> tags — strip them.
Retry with curl --retry 5 --retry-delay 2 --retry-all-errors; the endpoint throttles bursts.
PDF download
.patent.pdf is a path relative to https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/ — direct curl works, no challenge. Verify %PDF magic bytes. Name files US1234567B2-assignee-slug.pdf.
If the record lacks a pdf path, US grants are also served by https://image-ppubs.uspto.gov/dirsearch-public/print/downloadPdf/<number> (bare number, no US/kind code; verified working). The patent HTML page (patents.google.com/patent/...) 503-throttles after many requests — prefer the XHR endpoint or USPTO.
Full text/claims of one patent: https://patents.google.com/patent/<PUBNUM>/en (HTML, curl-friendly) — claims are in the <section itemprop="claims"> block.
Lens.org
The API (https://api.lens.org/patent/search) needs a Bearer token — free for individual scholarly use on request (lens.org/lens/user/subscriptions). If the user has LENS_TOKEN, POST {"query": {...elastic DSL...}, "size": 50}.
Without a token the SPA cannot be scraped: generate hand-off URLs instead, https://www.lens.org/lens/search/patent/list?q=<urlencoded boolean query>, and record them as manual-execution queries in the deliverable.
Anchor matrix (prior art deliverable)
For each anchor candidate record: publication number, title, assignee, priority date, status (grant/application), jurisdiction, which claim concepts overlap the idea under evaluation, and a relevance note. Prefer granted patents with early priority; keep one member per family (note family_metadata siblings). Save the queries used (exact strings + hit counts + date) alongside the matrix for reproducibility.
