Patent Examination Research Dataset (PatEx)

The latest version of PatEx (referred to below as the 2022 release) contains detailed information on more than 13 million publicly-viewable provisional and non-provisional patent applications to the USPTO and over 1 million Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) applications. It is based on data that OCE downloaded from the Patent Examination Data System (PEDS) in June, 2023. 

New files for 2022

The 2022 PatEx release includes some information that has not been made available in previous years. The release includes data on patent applicants in addition to inventors (all_applicants). It includes metadata on patent examination-related documents which are sourced from the CMS (cms_documents and cms_document_codes). An addendum to the technical documentation briefly describes these new data files.

2019 Release

The PEDS data are sourced from Public PAIR. The first time that OCE used PEDS as the basis of PatEx was for the 2019 release. We took the PEDS data and organized it into the familiar PatEx data files, which are based on the organization of the legacy Public PAIR portal. The data files include information on each application’s characteristics, prosecution history, continuation history, claims of foreign priority, patent term adjustment history, publication history, and correspondence address information. 

There are some minor differences between the post-2019 PatEx releases and those prior to 2019. Because of this, we provided new technical documentation for the 2019 release.

Technical documentation for the PatEx releases based on PEDS (the 2019 release to present) can be cited as:  Miller, Richard D., Technical Documentation for the 2019 Patent Examination Research Dataset (PatEx) Release. USPTO Economic Working Paper No. 2020-4.

2014 Release

A document describing the original 2014 PatEx release can be cited as: Graham, Stuart J.H. and Marco, Alan C. and Miller, Richard, The USPTO Patent Examination Research Dataset: A Window on the Process of Patent Examination (November 30, 2015). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2702637. Understanding how patent examination records become public is crucial to the proper analysis of the PatEx data. Thus, the document focuses primarily on the coverage of the underlying Public PAIR data and how it has evolved over time.

While the early documentation provides a good description of the coverage of the PatEx data, it does not describe the patent examination process in any great detail. An additional resource that provides more details on the examination process is the paper, "USPTO Patent Prosecution and Examiner Performance Appraisal", and can be cited as: Marco, Alan C., Toole, Andrew A., Miller, Richard and Frumkin, Jesse, USPTO Patent Prosecution and Examiner Performance Appraisal (June 1, 2017). USPTO Economic Working Paper No. 2017-08. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2995674 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2995674

Finally, for those researchers who want to develop an even better understanding of the patent examination process and some of the statutes and regulations surrounding it, a good primer is the Manual of Patent Examining Procedure.

For questions, please email EconomicsData@uspto.gov.

Data files

Each of the files below can be downloaded in either Stata-14 (DTA) or CSV format.

Download a full set of data files (2014): [.dta format (5.42 GB)] [.csv format (4.33 GB)]

Download a full set of data files (2015): [.dta format (5.56 GB)] [.csv format (4.99 GB)]

Download a full set of data files (2016): [.dta format (4.98 GB)] [.csv format (4.36 GB)]

Download a full set of data files (2017): [.dta format (5.37 GB)][.csv format (4.8 GB)]

Download a full set of data files (2019):  [.dta format (9.4 GB)] [.csv format (7.87 GB)]

Download a full set of data files (2020):  [.dta format (11.8 GB)] [.csv format (8.63 GB)]

Download a full set of data files (2021):  [.dta format (12.5 GB)] [.csv format (9.83 GB)]

Download a full set of data files (2022):  [.dta format (17.6 GB)] [.csv format (12.1 GB)]

Download individual data files (the direct download pages are here: 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022).

File Name2014202020212022
application_dataDTA
1.53 GB
CSV
585 MB
DTA
938 MB
CSV
828 MB
DTA
1.03 GB
CSV
853 MB
DTA
931 MB
CSV
887 MB
all_inventorsDTA
229 MB
CSV
225 MB
DTA
438 MB
CSV
439 MB
DTA
459 MB
CSV
464 MB
DTA
485 MB
CSV
492 MB
transactionsDTA
2.55 GB
CSV
2.45 GB
DTA
2.8 GB
CSV
1.8 GB
DTA
1.97 GB
CSV
1.93 GB
DTA
2.12 GB
CSV
2.02 GB
event_codesDTA
75 KB
CSV
21.2 KB
DTA
86.3 KB
CSV
24.5 KB
DTA
88.4 KB
CSV
24.6 KB
DTA
41.9 KB
CSV
24.8 KB
status_codesDTA
8.56 KB
CSV
3.53 KB
No
data
No
data
No
data
No
data
No
data
No
data
continuity_parentsDTA
49.9 MB
CSV
48.7 MB
DTA
125 MB
CSV
86.2 MB
DTA
124 MB
CSV
92.8 MB
DTA
131 MB
CSV
97.4 MB
continuity_childrenDTA
40.9 MB
CSV
40.9 MB
DTA
104 MB
CSV
69.1 MB
DTA
93.6 MB
CSV
74.2 MB
DTA
107 MB
CSV
78.1 MB
foreign_priorityDTA
36.5 MB
CSV
35.2 MB
DTA
82.1 MB
CSV
49.1 MB
DTA
78.8 MB
CSV
51.8 MB
DTA
79.4 MB
CSV
53.9 MB
pat_term_adjDTA
823 MB
CSV
747 MB
DTA
1.41 GB
CSV
1.67 GB
DTA
1.51 GB
CSV
1.83 GB
DTA
1.6 GB
CSV
1.94 GB
pta_summaryDTA
19.6 MB
CSV
16.2 MB
DTA
55.6 MB
CSV
35.3 MB
DTA
51.8 MB
CSV
37.9 MB
DTA
53.1 MB
CSV
40 MB
pte_summaryNo
data
No
data
DTA
531 KB
CSV
345 KB
DTA
515 KB
CSV
345 KB
DTA
515 KB
CSV
345 KB
correspondence_addressDTA
165 MB
CSV
243 MB
DTA
369 MB
CSV
378 MB
DTA
393 MB
CSV
389 MB
DTA
374 MB
CSV
404 MB
attorney_agentNo
data
No
data
DTA
5.51 GB
CSV
3.32 GB
DTA
6.79 GB
CSV
4.15 GB
DTA
6.52 GB
CSV
4.08 GB
all_applicantsNo
data
No
data
No
data
No
data
No
data
No
data
DTA
88.3 MB
CSV
96.7 MB
cms_document_codesNo
data
No
data
No
data
No
data
No
data
No
data
DTA
23.2 KB
CSV
14.8 KB
cms_documentsNo
data
No
data
No
data
No
data
No
data
No
data
DTA
5.13 GB
CSV
1.94 GB