Free tool
Patent lookup by number
Enter a publication number — US10123456B2, EP1234567A1 — and get the document’s title, abstract, assignee, date and claims, pulled live from the public record.
Free, no account. Retrieval only — nothing is billed and nothing is stored.
Reading a publication number
| Part | Example | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Country code | US, EP, WO, CN | The issuing office (WO is a PCT international application) |
| Serial number | 10123456 | The document number within that office |
| Kind code | A1, B2 | A = published application, B = granted patent; the digit is the revision |
A B-document means claims were examined and granted; an A-document is what was filed and published, usually 18 months after filing. Both count as prior art from their publication date. If you’re checking a number because you’re worried about your own idea, a lookup shows you one document — a real prior-art search finds the documents you don’t already know about.
This tool is anonymous and rate-limited to stay free. It never bills a search and never stores what you look up. Developers can call the same endpoint directly: GET /api/v1/patents/{pub_number}.