Office Action Citations API (beta)

Contains detailed information derived from the Office actions issued by patent examiners to applicants during the patent examination process. The Office Action is a written notification to the applicant of the examiners decision on patentability. It generally discloses the reasons for any rejections, objections, or requirements and includes relevant information or references that the applicant may find useful for responding to the examiner and deciding whether to continue prosecuting the application. This API allows for retrieval of citation data from 4.4 million Office actions mailed during the 2008 to mid-2017 period from USPTO examiners to the applicants of 2.2 million unique patent applications. It uses information derived from citations referenced on the Form PTO-892, Form PTO-1449, and text of Office Actions.

Data and Resources

Field Value
PrimaryITInvestmentUII
accessLevel public
accessLevelComment
accessURL https://developer.uspto.gov/api-catalog/uspto-office-action-citations-api-beta
accrualPeriodicity R/P1Y
bureauCode {006:51}
catalog_@context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
catalog_conformsTo https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
catalog_describedBy https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
dataDictionary https://developer.uspto.gov/ds-api-docs/index.html?url=https%3A//developer.uspto.gov/ds-api/swagger/docs/oa_citations.json
dataQuality true
format api
identifier ODP-OAC-API
issued 2018-03-01
landingPage https://developer.uspto.gov/api-catalog
language {en-US}
license https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0
mbox Developer@uspto.gov
modified 2021-12-10
programCode {006:070}
publisher Open Data Portal/Developer Hub Team
publisher_hierarchy U.S. Federal Government > Department of Commerce (DOC) > U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) > Open Data Portal/Developer Hub Team
references {https://developer.uspto.gov/product/patent-application-office-actions-research-dataset,https://bulkdata.uspto.gov/data/patent/office/actions/bigdata/2017/USPTO%20Patent%20Prosecution%20Research%20Data_Unlocking%20Office%20Action%20Traits.pdf}
resource-type Dataset
source_datajson_identifier true
source_hash 592d93de7764bd3bae8865b525bd25640566c681
source_schema_version 1.1
systemOfRecords
temporal 2008-01-01/2017-06-30
theme {uspto,patent,"patent application","office actions",citations,api}
webService https://developer.uspto.gov/api-catalog/uspto-office-action-citations-api-beta
Groups
  • AmeriGEOSS
  • National Provider
  • North America
Tags
  • AmeriGEO
  • AmeriGEOSS
  • CKAN
  • GEO
  • GEOSS
  • National
  • North America
  • United States
  • api
  • citations
  • office-actions
  • patent
  • patent-application
  • uspto
isopen False
license_id other-license-specified
license_title other-license-specified
maintainer Scott Beliveau
maintainer_email Scott.Beliveau@uspto.gov
metadata_created 2025-09-25T00:47:53.072497
metadata_modified 2025-09-25T00:47:53.072508
notes Contains detailed information derived from the Office actions issued by patent examiners to applicants during the patent examination process. The Office Action is a written notification to the applicant of the examiners decision on patentability. It generally discloses the reasons for any rejections, objections, or requirements and includes relevant information or references that the applicant may find useful for responding to the examiner and deciding whether to continue prosecuting the application. This API allows for retrieval of citation data from 4.4 million Office actions mailed during the 2008 to mid-2017 period from USPTO examiners to the applicants of 2.2 million unique patent applications. It uses information derived from citations referenced on the Form PTO-892, Form PTO-1449, and text of Office Actions.
num_resources 1
num_tags 14
title Office Action Citations API (beta)