China CNIPA Patents Scraper

China CNIPA Patents Scraper

Scrape Chinese patent data from CNIPA by keyword, assignee, inventor, or date range, up to a million records per run. Every patent returns its title, abstract, claims, legal status, and full bibliographic data in clean JSON. No API key or registration needed.

The official CNIPA patent database is the definitive source for Chinese intellectual property, but its web interface is built for single-record lookups, not bulk analysis. This Actor searches the public patent feeds directly, letting you filter by applicant name, inventor, priority date, country, or legal status, and returns every matching record in one consistent schema. Export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML for your IP landscape reports, competitor monitoring, or AI training pipelines.

Who uses it	What they scrape China CNIPA Patents for
IP analysts	Map a competitor's Chinese patent portfolio by assignee and filing date to spot R&D direction.
Patent attorneys	Search for prior art in Chinese-language patents by keyword and IPC classification before filing.
Data scientists	Build a training corpus of Chinese patent abstracts and claims for domain-specific NLP models.
Corporate strategists	Monitor weekly CNIPA publications for new entrants in a technology space.

What it does

This Actor searches Chinese patent records from CNIPA by free-text query, assignee, inventor, country, status, and date range, and returns each patent as a flat row with title, abstract, claims, and full bibliographic metadata.

• 🔍 Free-text search: enter any keyword or exact phrase in English or Chinese (e.g. "太阳能电池" or "solar cell") to search across titles, abstracts, and claims.
• 🏢 Assignee and inventor filters: narrow results to a specific company or individual named on the patent record.
• 📅 Priority date range: restrict results to patents filed within a YYYY-MM-DD window so you track only recent activity.
• 🌐 Country and language selectors: filter by ISO country code or publication language to isolate Chinese-origin filings or English-translated records.
• 📊 Status filter: choose granted patents only, applications only, or both, depending on whether you need enforceable rights or early signals.

Results export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML, or straight from the API.

What you can do with China CNIPA Patents data

📈 Monitor competitor patenting activity.

An IP analyst sets the assignee to a competitor's name and the date range to the last quarter, then exports the results to track their latest filings in China.

🔬 Conduct Chinese prior-art searches.

A patent attorney enters a technical keyword in Chinese and filters by application status to find relevant published applications before drafting a new filing.

🤖 Build a Chinese patent NLP dataset.

A data scientist runs a broad keyword search, collects thousands of abstracts and claims in Chinese, and uses the JSON export to fine-tune a transformer model.

🌍 Map global filing strategies.

A corporate strategist searches by assignee with country set to CN, then repeats for WO and EP, to see where a competitor is seeking protection.

Why choose this scraper

	What you get
Bilingual search	Query in English or Chinese and get results with both language fields where available
No API limits	Pull up to a million patents per run without rate-limiting or authentication
Fixed schema	Every patent arrives with the same fields, ready for pandas, SQL, or Excel

How it compares

This Actor searches the live CNIPA database directly, while the alternatives listed below each take a different approach to Chinese patent data.

Feature	ParseForge	China CNIPA Patent Scraper	CNIPA China Patent Search - 专利检索 API
Searches live CNIPA database directly	Yes	Not listed	Yes
Full patent claims text	Yes	Not listed	Yes
Bilingual Chinese-English output	Yes	Yes	Not listed
Filter by legal status (granted/application)	Yes	Yes	Not listed
Priority date range filter	Yes	Yes	Not listed
No API key or registration required	Yes	Not listed	Not listed

Configure the run

Drive the Actor from a free-text query, assignee name, inventor name, or any combination, and filters run as each patent is read so only matches reach your dataset. The Input tab lists every parameter.

A first run with the defaults:

{
 "maxItems": 10,
 "query": "solar cell",
 "country": "CN",
 "sort": "new"
}

A larger pull:

{
 "maxItems": 200,
 "query": "solar cell",
 "country": "CN",
 "sort": "new"
}

Pricing

Pay-per-result: $0.021 per result collected. You pay only for the results written to your dataset.

Results collected	Approximate cost
100 results	$2.10
1,000 results	$21.00
10,000 results	$210.00

New Apify accounts start with $5 in free credit.

Free users

Free-plan runs return up to 10 results as a preview. Upgrade your Apify plan to collect up to 1,000,000 results per run.

Run it

1. Create a free Apify account with $5 in credit.
2. Open the China CNIPA Patents Scraper.
3. Set your inputs and any filters, then click Start.
4. Export the results as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML from the Dataset tab.

Run it programmatically through the Apify API (run-sync-get-dataset-items) or the ApifyClient for JavaScript and Python.

Use with AI agents (MCP)

Give an AI agent live access to China CNIPA Patents through the Model Context Protocol. Add the Actor to Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client:

claude mcp add --transport http apify "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=parseforge/china-cnipa-patents-scraper"

Then prompt it in plain language to run the scraper and read back the results.

Troubleshooting

Why am I getting no results?

Check that your query terms are spelled correctly and that any date range or status filter is not too restrictive. Try broadening the query or removing optional filters like assignee or country.

The run stopped before reaching my maxItems setting.

The Actor stops when CNIPA returns no more matching patents. Your query may have fewer total results than the maximum you set. Try a broader search term.

Some fields are empty in my output.

Not every patent record contains all fields. For example, an application may not yet have a grant date, or an older record may lack an English abstract. This is expected.

My Chinese-character search returns unexpected results.

Try wrapping your query in double quotes for an exact phrase match. Without quotes, the search may split characters into individual terms.

The run is taking a long time.

Large result sets with high maxItems values take longer to collect. Reduce the maximum patents per run or add a date range to narrow the search.

FAQ

Question	Answer
Can I search in Chinese characters?	Yes. The query field accepts Chinese, English, or mixed input. Use double quotes around exact phrases in either language.
Does this Actor require a CNIPA API key?	No. It reads the public patent search interface directly. You only need an Apify account.
What patent fields are included in the output?	Each record includes the title, abstract, claims, inventor and assignee names, publication and priority dates, IPC/CPC classifications, legal status, and country code. The exact field list is shown in the sample output on the Actor's page.
Can I filter by legal status?	Yes. Use the Status dropdown to select granted patents only, applications only, or both.
How many patents can I scrape in one run?	You can set the maximum up to 1,000,000 patents per run. The Actor will stop when it reaches that number or when no more results match your query.
Does it return English translations of Chinese patents?	Many CNIPA records include English titles and abstracts alongside the Chinese originals. The Actor captures both when available. You can also filter by language to prefer English records.
Can I search by IPC classification?	The free-text query field searches across the full patent text, including classification codes. Enter an IPC code directly to find patents in that class.
What export formats are supported?	You can export your dataset to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML from the Apify platform.
Is there a way to get only patents from a specific country?	Yes. Use the Country dropdown to select an ISO country code like CN, US, or EP. Leave it empty to search worldwide.
How do I search for patents by a specific inventor?	Enter the inventor's name in the Inventor field. The Actor will return only patents where that person is listed as an inventor.

Related actors

• google-patents-scraper: Use this instead if you need patents from multiple jurisdictions in a single search with Google Patents' ranking.

Browse the full ParseForge collection for more scrapers.

🆘 Need help? Email parseforge@protonmail.com with your run ID, your input, and what you expected.

⚠️ Disclaimer. This Actor is unofficial and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by China National Intellectual Property Administration. It collects only publicly available data. You are responsible for using the collected data in compliance with the source's terms of service and applicable data-protection laws, including GDPR, CCPA, and PIPL. Do not use it to collect personal data unlawfully.