Skip to content

WIPO PATENTSCOPE — multilateral
Layer multilateral
System Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) + national patent collections aggregated by WIPO
Operator World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)
Rights covered patent (and where applicable utility model)
Coverage PCT international applications + national/regional collections from ~70 contributing offices
Working languages English + WIPO official languages
Connector status skipped for live search (ToS prohibits automated queries); future partner API monitored
Last verified 2026-05-16
Manifest entry not listed in coverage/sources.yaml for PATENTSCOPE specifically; PCT-related patents reachable transitively via EPO INPADOC

Detail surveys:

Higher / sibling layers carrying overlapping data:

  • EPO INPADOC — DOCDB carries biblio for ~100 offices including most major PATENTSCOPE contributors. For agents needing patent biblio, INPADOC is the recommended path.
  • National offices' direct registers (where APIs exist) — USPTO ODP, EPO OPS, JPO, etc.

Rating: 🔴 Red — ToS

ToS §2.1 forbids automated queries; paid SOAP/SFTP only Jump to access details → View on the atlas →

§1 Mission

PATENTSCOPE is WIPO's flagship public patent search system, covering PCT applications and a growing set of national collections through bilateral contribution agreements. It's the closest thing to a unified global patent database, with strong multilingual coverage and machine translation. For agents wanting "search across all jurisdictions without per-office plumbing," PATENTSCOPE is the conceptual fit.

The catch: WIPO's public-facing PATENTSCOPE is consumed via the web UI, not via an API. The only programmatic surface is a paid bulk product over SFTP, and the public web UI's ToS explicitly prohibits automated queries.

§2 What's unique here

  • PCT application data not yet entered into national phase — PCT international applications are visible via PATENTSCOPE before they hit any national office's register.
  • WIPO's machine-translated abstracts in WIPO-supported languages.
  • Cross-jurisdictional unified search UI — one query across ~70 collections (this is the part WIPO won't let us proxy).

§3 Programmatic surfaces

Public PATENTSCOPE web UI

Field Value
Endpoint https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/
Auth none
Format HTML
ToS posture §2.1 explicitly forbids automated queries. >10 actions/min from a single IP flagged as excessive.
Verdict (zero-infra proxy) 🔴 Red — ToS prohibits the access pattern
Primary sources PATENTSCOPE Terms of Use (Oct 2025) — §2.1 prohibition; PCT Data Products and Services
Field Value
Endpoint SFTP delivery (post-contract)
Auth Account + paid contract
Format XML (ST.36 + WIPO publication schemas)
Cost CHF 400 – 2,000 / year per the PCT Data Products page; CHF 400 for the most basic weekly subset
ToS posture Bulk redistribution explicitly addressed in contract; review required
Verdict 🟡 Yellow — bulk-shaped (not live API), but cleanest WIPO data deal if budget exists
Primary source PCT Data Products and Services
Field Value
Endpoint SOAP envelope (WSDL on request)
Auth Account + paid contract
Cost ~CHF 2,600 / year
ToS posture Search-style access; subject to ToS
Verdict 🔴 Red — paid + SOAP + poor stack fit; SFTP bulk gives most of the data more cheaply
Primary source PCT Data Products and Services

Article 6ter Express API

Field Value
Endpoint WIPO Article 6ter Express
Auth none
Format REST/JSON
Verdict 🟢 Green for the narrow dataset it covers (state emblems / IGO marks)
Primary source WIPO Article 6ter Express

Note: Article 6ter is a small but clean dataset — not patent search. Useful for trademark conflict analysis (state emblems can't be registered as trademarks).

§4 Fees

Official PCT fee schedule: WIPO — PCT fees Statutory basis: PCT Regulations (Rule 96) + Schedule of Fees

PCT applications carry international fees (transmittal, search, examination, international filing, supplementary search) plus national-phase entry fees at each designated office. The international fees are paid at the receiving Office (USPTO, EPO, JPO, KIPO, CNIPA, IB) and forwarded to WIPO + the International Searching Authority.

PATENTSCOPE access fees (separate from PCT filing fees) are documented on the PCT Data Products page: CHF 400 / yr (SFTP weekly subset) to CHF 2,600 / yr (SOAP search).

§5 Access via patent-client-agents

What we cover today

What we should NOT add (and why)

  • PATENTSCOPE public-UI scraping — ToS §2.1 explicitly forbids automated queries; >10 actions/min flagged excessive. Doing this would be a contract violation regardless of technical feasibility.
  • Paid SOAP search proxy — SOAP + CHF 2,600/yr + paid-only model that we'd need to re-contract for each end user. Poor stack fit; redundant with INPADOC for most use cases.

What we could consider

  • wipo_pct_bulk — paid SFTP feed at CHF 400/yr for weekly PCT XML. Bulk-shaped, but legally clean and at the cheap end of WIPO's data products. BACKLOG.md Tier 1 Rank 7 lists this as wipo_patentscope_bulk. Doesn't meet zero-infra constraint by definition (bulk), but is a reasonable budget option if user demand for PCT-specific freshness justifies it.
  • wipo_article6ter — free REST/JSON for state emblems / IGO marks. Small but clean; [BACKLOG Tier 1 Rank 8].

What to monitor

  • WIPO partner API program — undocumented endpoint observed at public-api.branddb.wipo.int (AWS API Gateway responding "Missing Authentication Token") suggests WIPO is building partner program. Recheck quarterly at WIPO API Catalog.

Next steps

  1. Quarterly recheck of WIPO API Catalog for new public endpoints.
  2. Consider wipo_pct_bulk if budget for CHF 400/yr exists AND user demand for PCT-specific freshness emerges.
  3. wipo_article6ter is a low-effort win for trademark workflows that need state-emblem screening.

§6 Known unknowns

  • WIPO partner API release date — observed signals but no announcement.
  • PCT SFTP feed scope — does it include reassignments / legal-status updates, or only publication-week snapshots? Contact patentscope@wipo.int.
  • WIPO Lex licensing for systematic mirroring of bibliographic metadata — statutes themselves are public-domain but WIPO's metadata layer ToS is separately addressed.

§7 References

Primary sources only.

System overview:

ToS:

Data products:

Detail survey + wave:

Last updated 2026-05-16.