How to scrape Google Patents with Python
One endpoint, every patent as clean JSON, saved to CSV.
How do you get started?
From zero to live patent data in about two minutes:
- 1
Create a free account. Try it free, no card needed.
- 2
Copy your API key from the dashboard.
- 3
Run the curl or the script below. Clean JSON comes back, ready to save as CSV.
One request, real response
The hard part of scraping Google Patents yourself is driving a browser, dodging blocks, and parsing a page that keeps changing. Instead you send one HTTP request to a search endpoint and get clean JSON back. First a quick test with curl:
Then the same call in Python with the requests library. Install it with pip install requests, drop in a key, and run:
The results live in the organic array. Each item has the publication number, title, inventor, assignee, the priority, filing, grant, and publication dates, a link to the page on Google Patents, and a PDF link. Here are two of the patents that came back, shown as CSV so they drop straight into Sheets or a spreadsheet:
Change q to any topic, company, or inventor you would search on Google Patents, like solid state electrolyte or lithium anode. Results come from offices worldwide, so you will see US, CN, JP, and EP publication numbers side by side.
What data do you get?
Every result comes complete, so you build a dataset or a prior-art list with no second call. The same record as CSV, ready for a spreadsheet or a database:
Or the same record as JSON, exactly as the API returns it:
vs writing your own scraper
You can build a Google Patents scraper with a headless browser and a parser, and plenty of tutorials show how. The trade is maintenance. Here is the difference in practice.
| Writing it yourself | CrustAPI | |
|---|---|---|
| Setup | Install a headless browser, handle blocks and page changes | One GET request, no browser |
| Output | Parse the HTML yourself; fields break when the layout changes | Clean JSON from the API, or the same rows as CSV |
| Maintenance | Fix the scraper each time the page changes | We keep it working |
| Free tier | Free, but you pay in time and blocked requests | Free to try, no card |
| Cost model | Server, proxy, and developer time | Pay per successful search, however many patents come back; empty searches free |
| Storing the data | Yours to manage | No storage limits. Export to CSV or a database |
How much does scraping Google Patents cost?
You pay the applicable price per successful search, however many patents come back. A search that returns none costs nothing. Funds are prepaid and never expire.
| Deposit | Google Search / 1,000 requests | Maps / 1,000 businesses | LinkedIn reads / 1,000 requests | People, Jobs, Refresh / 1,000 units |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $10+ | $1.00 | $1.96 | $6.00 | $1.96 |
| $149+ | $0.76 | $1.49 | $4.50 | $1.49 |
| $549+ | $0.56 | $1.10 | $3.30 | $1.10 |
| $1,999+ | $0.41 | $0.80 | $2.45 | $0.80 |
| $6,500+ | $0.33 | $0.65 | $1.95 | $0.65 |
| $27,500+ | $0.28 | $0.55 | $1.65 | $0.55 |
| $50,000+ | $0.26 | $0.50 | $1.50 | $0.50 |
| $100,000+ | $0.20 | $0.40 | $1.50 | $0.40 |
Every eligible account gets $6 of free usage monthly. Each deposit keeps its prices until spent; paid funds never expire. People and Jobs bill per successful search, Refresh per accessible profile. Full profiles in People use the read rate per full profile. See all billing details.
Larger deposits unlock lower endpoint prices. Each deposit keeps its prices until spent. See the full deposit table on the pricing page. Prices in USD, ex-tax.
Who scrapes Google Patents?
- IP and patent teams. Build a prior-art list with dates, assignees, and PDF links in one run.
- R&D engineers. Watch what competitors file in your field, straight into a spreadsheet.
- Analysts and investors. Map filing activity across a technology to see who is building what.
- Academics and researchers. Pull filings from offices worldwide into one dataset for a study.
Page through results and save to CSV
Each call returns one page of results. Add a page number and loop to pull more, then write everything to a CSV file with Python's built-in csv module. No extra libraries. This walks pages 1 to 5 and writes one row per patent:
Open patents.csv in Sheets or Excel and you have a finished list. Swap the query, run it again, and append to build a bigger dataset.
Related: Google Patents API · Google Patents Scraper · Google Search API · Google Scholar API · API docs
When a different tool fits better: a bulk download of the full patent corpus, legal-status feeds, or a formal data license are jobs for the USPTO, EPO, or Google's public BigQuery patents dataset, not a search scraper. This endpoint returns the public search results anyone sees on Google Patents, which is what most prior-art, research, and monitoring work needs.
Common questions
No. With the CrustAPI endpoint you send one HTTP request with the requests library and get clean JSON back. There is no browser to drive and no HTML to parse, so the code above is the whole scraper.
Publication number, title, inventor, assignee, the priority, filing, grant, and publication dates, a link to the Google Patents page, a PDF link, and figure images when the patent has them.
Each call returns one page. Add a page number to the request and loop, as the Page through results section shows. You pay one charge per search, however many patents come back, so each page you pull costs one request charge.
Logged-out, public-only collection has repeatedly defeated computer-fraud and contract claims. Google's Terms restrict automated access that violates instructions like robots.txt. What you get is the same public search result anyone sees on Google Patents.
The response is plain JSON, so Python's built-in csv module writes it to a file in a few lines. The Page through results section above has the exact code, no extra libraries.
Yes. Try it free, no credit card, and paid funds never expire. That is enough to pull several full result pages while you build.
Clay
Try it on a topic you know
the free plan covers a real search. Run one query and look at the JSON that comes back.
Try for free