lpuettmann / get-patents

Download US patent grant texts from Google patents

Download US patent grant texts from Google patents

The function download_patent_files.m goes to the bulk download page of Google patents and downloads the Patent Grant Full Texts. The following table shows the rough size of the files:

Years	Format	Size (unzipped)
1976-2001	.txt	98 GB
2002-2015	.XML, .xml	238 GB

The files for 2001 are available in both formats and I choose the .txt format here.

To use these codes, first define the name of the directory that will hold the files (path to data) and the start and end year, run:

>>parent_dname = 'patent_data';
>>year_start = 1976;
>>year_start = 2015;

Then to download the files from Google Patents (careful ❗, these are 300 GB), run:

>>download_patent_files(year_start, year_end, parent_dname)

It puts the unzipped data files into subdirectories /[year].

Then to unzip all files and delete zipped files, run:

>>unzip_patent_files(year_start, year_end, parent_dname)

Finally, in directory /1976 you should see:

$ls
pftaps19760106_wk01.txt
pftaps19760106_wk02.txt
pftaps19760106_wk03.txt
...

And in directory /2014 you should see:

$ls
ipg140107.xml
ipg140114.xml
ipg140121.xml
...