Skip to content

eps-rest-services.md

Latest commit

 

History

History
190 lines (125 loc) · 5.89 KB

eps-rest-services.md

File metadata and controls

190 lines (125 loc) · 5.89 KB

European Publication Server REST Services Reference Guide

Source PDF: https://data.epo.org/publication-server/doc/EPS%20REST%20services.pdf

This file is a Markdown conversion of the EPO PDF document "European Publication Server REST services" (Revision 1.6, 2024/04).

Revision Sheet

Revision Date Description
1.6 2024/04 REST service version 1.0 and 1.1 no longer supported; user-agent registration no longer necessary (all users have access to raw data in XML, PDF, ZIP, and HTML formats).
1.5 2022/05 Section 1.3: download limit increased to 10GB.
1.4 2018/10 Section 1.3: download limit increased to 5GB.
1.3 2016/09 Section 1.3: download limit increased to 4GB.
1.2 2016/02 Contact point changed; Section 2 improved URL responses; Section 4 clarified exchange of user-agent name with the EPO.
1.1 2013/09 New service in REST version 1.2 for image retrieval.
1.0 2013/02 Document creation.

Table of Contents

  1. General information
  2. Access to the REST service
  3. List of EPS REST services
    • 3.1 Retrieval of publication dates
    • 3.2 Retrieval of weekly patent lists
    • 3.3 Retrieval of document formats
    • 3.4 Retrieval of raw data

1. General information

1.1 What is the European Publication Server

According to the European Patent Convention, the European Patent Office has the legal obligation to publish the patent applications it receives (A-documents) and the patents it grants (B-documents). The European Publication Server (EPS) (https://data.epo.org/publication-server/) has been the sole legally authoritative publication medium for European A and B documents since 1 April 2005.

1.2 What are REST services

REST defines a set of architectural principles by which you can design web services that focus on a system's resources, including how resource states are addressed and transferred over HTTP by a wide range of clients written in different languages.

1.3 REST services in the European Publication Server

The EPS REST API enables access to XML, HTML, TIFF images, and PDF/A of European A and B publications.

The fair-use policy limits a given IP address to 10GB of download in any sliding window of 7 days.

1.4 Contact point

For all matters relating to the European Publication Server and its REST services, contact support@epo.org.

2. Access to the REST service

The REST services are available at:

https://data.epo.org/publication-server/rest/v1.2

This URL shows the list of services (publication-dates and patents) supported by version 1.2.

Note: version 1.0 and 1.1 are no longer supported (the SOAP-based webservice is also no longer supported).

3. List of EPS REST services

3.1 Retrieval of publication dates

Description:

This service returns the list of all publication dates available in the EPS database.

URL template:

https://data.epo.org/publication-server/rest/v1.2/publication-dates

Request example:

GET https://data.epo.org/publication-server/rest/v1.2/publication-dates

Response example:

<html>
...
<body>
<a href="https://data.epo.org/.../publication-dates/20130904/patents">2013/09/04</a>
<a href="https://data.epo.org/.../publication-dates/20130911/patents">2013/09/11</a>
...
</body>
</html>

3.2 Retrieval of weekly patent lists

Description:

This service returns the list of patents being published at a given publication date.

URL template:

https://data.epo.org/publication-server/rest/v1.2/publication-dates/{publicationDate}/patents

Format of {publicationDate} is YYYYMMDD. Example: 20130904.

Request example:

GET https://data.epo.org/publication-server/rest/v1.2/publication-dates/20130904/patents

Response example:

<html>
...
<body>
<a href="https://.../publication-dates/20130904/patents/EP1004359NWB1">EP1004359NWB1</a>
<a href="https://.../publication-dates/20130904/patents/EP1026129NWB1">EP1026129NWB1</a>
...
</body>
</html>

3.3 Retrieval of document formats

Description:

This service retrieves the list of available formats for a given document.

Formats available:

  • XML
  • HTML (transformation on-the-fly of the XML)
  • PDF
  • ZIP (including XML, PDF, and drawings in TIFF format)

Note that the availability of data in a given format may vary depending on the publication date.

URL template:

https://data.epo.org/publication-server/rest/v1.2/patents/{patentNumber}

Format of {patentNumber} is country-code + number + correction-code + kind-code. Example: EP1004359NWB1.

Request example:

GET https://data.epo.org/publication-server/rest/v1.2/patents/EP1004359NWB1

Response example:

<html>
<body>
<a href="https://data.epo.org/.../patents/EP1004359NWB1/document.xml">XML</a>
<a href="https://data.epo.org/.../patents/EP1004359NWB1/document.html">HTML</a>
<a href="https://data.epo.org/.../patents/EP1004359NWB1/document.pdf">PDF</a>
<a href="https://data.epo.org/.../patents/EP1004359NWB1/document.zip">ZIP</a>
</body>
</html>

3.4 Retrieval of raw data

Description:

This service provides access to raw data in XML, HTML, PDF, and ZIP formats.

URL template:

https://data.epo.org/publication-server/rest/v1.2/patents/{patentNumber}/document.{format}

Format of {patentNumber}: country-code + number + correction-code + kind-code. Example: EP0729353NWB2.

{format} is the preferred download format (xml, html, pdf, or zip) - see section 3.3.

Request example:

GET https://data.epo.org/publication-server/rest/v1.2/patents/EP0729353NWB2/document.xml

Response example:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE ep-patent-document PUBLIC "-//EPO//EP PATENT DOCUMENT 1.4//EN" "ep-patent-document-v1-4.dtd">
<ep-patent-document id="EP95901961B2" file="EP95901961NWB2.xml" lang="en" country="EP" doc-number="0729353" kind="B2" date-publ="20120912" status="n" dtd-version="ep-patent-document-v1-4">
<SDOBI lang="en"><B000><eptags>
...
</ep-patent-document>