The CIPO API for trademark search
Access 2.2M Canadian Intellectual Property Office records via API. Normalized data, sub-second response, and daily sync — all through Signa's unified trademark API.
Search CIPO in one POST request.
One REST endpoint. Filter by offices: ['CIPO'] to scope to ~2.2M CIPO records, or drop the filter to search every office.
Sub-300ms p95 on CIPO queries
Exact, phonetic, fuzzy, and prefix strategies in one request.
Canonical status & raw code preserved
status.primary for filtering, status.raw_code if you need it.
Verifiable freshness
Every record includes updated_at.
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2.2M records
CIPO register indexed and queryable through one endpoint.
Daily sync
Database synced regularly with CIPO's source publication.
100% field accuracy
Validated against CIPO source data across a 1,000-field spot-check audit.
Normalized schema
25 raw CIPO status codes mapped to a canonical status object — same shape across every office.
What is CIPO?
The Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) is the special operating agency within Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) responsible for examining and registering trademarks in Canada under the Trademarks Act (R.S.C., 1985, c. T-13). Based in Gatineau, Quebec, CIPO maintains the Canadian Trademarks Database, which today holds roughly 2.2M records dating back to 1869.
The 2019 reforms reshaped Canadian trademark law more deeply than any change in decades. Canada acceded to the Madrid Protocol, allowing inbound and outbound international filings; the Nice Classification was adopted; non-traditional marks (sound, hologram, scent, taste, texture, moving images, three-dimensional shapes, colour, position) became registrable; and the longstanding "use in Canada" requirement at filing was removed. Use is still required to renew, and Section 45 cancellation proceedings remain the tool for challenging unused marks. Registration term moved from 15 years to 10 years on renewal.
Unlike the USPTO or EUIPO, CIPO does not publish a real trademark API. Public access is limited to the CIPO Trademarks Database web search and weekly ST.96 XML bulk drops on the IP Horizons page, along with periodic CA-TMK-GLOBAL historical snapshots. Anyone building software on Canadian trademark data either scrapes the rendered web UI or builds a multi-gigabyte nested-ZIP XML pipeline. Signa ingests the weekly drop, parses both XML and the CTMDB JSON endpoint, and normalizes everything — including Madrid designations of Canada, non-traditional marks, and Section 9 official marks — into the same schema you get for the USPTO, EUIPO, and WIPO.
Unique features
- No public REST API — only a web search UI (CIPO Trademarks Database) and weekly ST.96 XML bulk downloads
- Madrid Protocol since 2019 — Canada is now a contracting party, with ~148K Madrid designations of Canada in the register
- Nice Classification adopted 2019 — replaced the legacy Canadian wares-and-services free-text regime
- Non-traditional marks registrable since 2019 — sound, hologram, scent, taste, texture, moving images, 3D shapes, colour, and position marks
- Use NOT required at filing (post-2019), but use IS required at renewal — and Section 45 lets anyone challenge unused marks after 3 years
- Two-month opposition window — much shorter than USPTO's extendable 30-day window; statements of opposition must be filed within two months of advertisement
- Section 9 "official marks" — a uniquely Canadian regime for prohibited marks of public authorities (~43K records on the register) that are not renewable
- Registration term of 10 years (down from 15 years pre-2019), renewable indefinitely
CIPO Trademarks Database vs Signa.
CIPO does not publish a public REST API for trademark search. The only direct paths are the CIPO Trademarks Database web search (HTML, designed for humans) and the weekly ST.96 XML drops on the IP Horizons page (nested ZIPs, multi-gigabyte). Here's what changes when you use Signa instead.
| Dimension | CIPO Trademarks Database | Signa |
|---|---|---|
| Access | Scrape the CIPO Trademarks Database HTML UI, or download nested-ZIP ST.96 XML drops (latest weekly is ~4 GB) | REST endpoint with API key — same shape as USPTO, EUIPO, WIPO |
| Setup | Build an HTML scraper for CTMDB plus a nested-ZIP XML pipeline (outer ZIP → inner CA-TMK-UPDATE ZIPs → ST.96 XML per mark), and host the disk + compute to unpack ~30 GB of working storage per cycle | Sign up, copy API key, curl the endpoint |
| Data shape | ST.96 XML with text-based status codes plus a parallel set of numeric CTMDB codes; you reconcile the two vocabularies yourself | Normalized JSON with 25 CIPO status codes mapped to a canonical status object, identical to every other office |
| Search | CTMDB JSON search exists but has no date filter, no sort, and returns thin records (no events, no owners, no Vienna codes, no priorities) — full per-mark data only lives in the weekly XML | Full-text, fuzzy, phonetic, and image search over the complete record including events, owners, Madrid designations, and Section 9 marks |
| Freshness | New weekly ZIP appears Wednesdays on IP Horizons; you write the discovery + download + extraction + diff pipeline (and handle the opic-cipo.ca TLS chain that breaks Node and Bun fetch) | Signa runs the weekly cron Wednesdays at 14:00 ET; new records queryable on the API within an hour of publication |
| Coverage | CIPO only — add USPTO, EUIPO, WIPO, UKIPO separately, each with a different format and a different API (or no API) | CIPO + 20 other offices through the same endpoint |
If you only need a handful of Canadian lookups, the CIPO web search works fine. If you need programmatic access at scale — bulk pulls, daily diffs, search beyond what the CTMDB UI offers — you're either building the XML ingestion pipeline yourself or you're using Signa.
CIPO API — Frequently asked questions
Everything developers ask before integrating CIPO data
Need something else? See our documentation
CIPO data access basics
Coverage, scope, and shape
Need something else? See our documentation
Ready to search 2.2M CIPO trademarks via API?
Start with 1,000 free CIPO requests/month. 2.2M records indexed, normalized data across 20+ offices through the same endpoint.
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