The uspto has shutdown the pairbulk api and replaced it with The USPTO Patent Examination Data System (PEDS) at https://ped.uspto.gov/peds. I suspect that many of the pair bulk comments below still apply but am giving them the benefit of the doubt until I can confirm them.Here's a summary of the differences I've noticed between Patentsview's and Pair Bulk Data's apis. My pages about the pair bulk api are here.
Observation | Patentsview | Pair Bulk Data |
---|---|---|
documentation | fabulous | improving |
opensource | yes (active?) | no |
show uspc/ccl's¹ post May 2015 | No | Yes (only system that still does) |
cpc's and uspc's | multiples of each correctly returned for utility patents but not plant or design patents | one uspc and zero cpc's are returned per patent |
can search by cpc | Yes! | No |
current issue date | lagging a few months² | current and at one point was a bit into the future! |
swagger as api documentation | only unofficially (I reverse engineered the definition for it) | Yes! (peds link) |
hateoas | no | yes |
json.wrf callback parameter | none | There used to be a required parameter but it seems to have been removed. (good for app developers, not so good for web developers - google for json.wrf to see why you may want this parameter) |
future api versions | has/states the url plan | unspecified |
returns 404 when no data matches query | No | Yes! |
adds an X- header to explain errors | Yes! | No |
more than primary sort (secondary etc) | Yes! | No |
post endpoints work from user's domains across multiple browsers | Yes! (didn't at one point) | Yes! |
search by patent status (expired etc) | no | Yes! |
can search by assignee | Yes! | No, can search by First Named Inventor but not as complete |
Is Document Identifier returned by the api? data ex. US 20160066296 A1 | No | Yes! |
Offers a query tool and downloads | Yes! | Yes! |
Query download offers csv format | Yes! | No |
Query columns are selectable | Yes! | No |
uses https: | Yes! | |
R package available? | Yes! | No |
Returns latitudes and longitudes | Yes! | No |
Has an online forum | Yes! | No |