The IPAU API for trademark search
Access 2.3M IP Australia records via API. Normalized data, sub-second response, and daily sync — all through Signa's unified trademark API.
Search IP Australia in one POST request.
One REST endpoint. Filter by offices: ['IPAU'] to scope to ~2.3M IP Australia records, or drop the filter to search every office.
Sub-300ms p95 on IP Australia 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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2.3M records
IP Australia register indexed and queryable through one endpoint.
Daily sync
Database synced regularly with IP Australia's source publication.
100% field accuracy
Validated against IP Australia source data across a 4,199-field spot-check audit.
Normalized schema
19 raw IP Australia status codes mapped to a canonical status object — same shape across every office.
What is IP Australia?
IP Australia is the Commonwealth agency responsible for examining and registering trademarks across Australia, operating under the Department of Industry, Science and Resources from its headquarters in Canberra. Trademarks are administered under the Trade Marks Act 1995, which introduced non-traditional marks (shape, sound, scent, colour) to the Australian register and set examination on the modern footing it still uses today — typically reaching a first office action in around 13 weeks. The office receives roughly 80,000–90,000 trademark applications a year and has been a Madrid Protocol member since 11 July 2001.
IP Australia is also one of the most open IP offices in the world. The Intellectual Property Government Open Data initiative (IPGOD) publishes the entire Australian IP register — trademarks, patents, designs, plant breeder's rights — as bulk CSV downloads under a Creative Commons licence, and has been a reference implementation that other national offices have studied when planning their own open-data programs. The Australian Trade Mark Search system (the modern successor to ATMOSS, the Australian Trade Mark Online Search System) is the public web tool for one-off lookups, and there is a real REST API behind it for licensed clients via the IP Australia developer portal. TM Headstart is the office's distinctive pre-filing assessment program — a paid examination preview that flags likely objections before you commit to a real filing.
Signa ingests the Australian Trade Mark Search REST API end-to-end with a daily incremental sync on the changedSinceDate watermark (07:00 AEST cron), normalizing IP Australia's local conventions — Fancy/combined mark kinds, ABN/ACN owner identifiers, the array-shaped words[] and descriptionText[] fields, Article 6ter prohibited-mark records with negative IDs — into the same canonical schema used for USPTO, EUIPO, and 19 other offices. The full 2.3M-record register is queryable through the same endpoint as every other office in your stack.
Unique features
- IPGOD open data — IP Australia publishes the full trademark, patent, design, and plant breeder's right register as bulk CSV under a Creative Commons licence, a model program many other national offices have studied
- TM Headstart — paid pre-filing assessment where an examiner reviews your mark for likely objections before you commit to a formal filing
- Madrid Protocol member since 11 July 2001 — Madrid designations of Australia are examined alongside direct national filings and are roughly 16% of the corpus
- Non-traditional marks since 1995 — the Trade Marks Act 1995 explicitly admits shape, sound, scent, colour, and combined ("Fancy") marks on the same register as words and devices
- Two-month opposition window from publication (advertisement) — among the shorter windows globally; extensions are available on request
- Fast examination — typical first office action lands in around 13 weeks under standard prosecution
- Defensive trade marks are an AU-specific instrument for well-known marks — they protect against use on dissimilar goods even where the owner does not itself trade in that class
- Australian Business Number (ABN) and Australian Company Number (ACN) identifiers are surfaced in owner records, making entity resolution against the Australian corporate register reliable in a way most foreign registers don't support
IPGOD bulk CSV + Trade Mark Search API vs Signa.
IP Australia gives you three front doors. IPGOD is the bulk open-data dump — published as CSV under Creative Commons, refreshed periodically, no auth required. The Australian Trade Mark Search REST API (provisioned via portal.api.ipaustralia.gov.au) is the live programmatic endpoint, OAuth2 client_credentials with a 600 req/min Base Tier. The public Trade Mark Search web tool (formerly ATMOSS) is for one-off human lookups. Here's what changes when you use Signa instead.
| Dimension | IPGOD bulk CSV + Trade Mark Search API | Signa |
|---|---|---|
| Setup | Register on portal.api.ipaustralia.gov.au, get OAuth2 app provisioned for Production (two gates: OAuth store + API contract), then build paginated bulk fetch from POST /page/advanced; or download IPGOD CSV and write a custom parser | Sign up, copy API key, curl the endpoint |
| Data shape | Proprietary flat JSON (not ST.96/ST.97), with array-shaped words[] and descriptionText[] fields, AU-specific Fancy/Feel/Taste mark kinds, no separate registrationNumber (the trade mark number is reused), and 17+ raw statusCode values to map yourself | Normalized JSON with canonical status object and unified schema across every office |
| Search | The Trade Mark Search web UI for humans, or POST /page/advanced for paginated filters — you still build full-text, fuzzy, phonetic, and image search yourself on top of the raw fields | Full-text, fuzzy, phonetic, and image search out of the box |
| Freshness | changedSinceDate filter on the live API works well — you build the watermark + retry + dedup yourself; IPGOD CSV is a periodic snapshot, not a delta feed | Daily 07:00 AEST sync against the same changedSinceDate watermark, dedup-checked and re-indexed before you wake up |
| Coverage | Australia only — add EUIPO, WIPO, USPTO separately, each with different auth and format | IP Australia + 20 other offices through the same endpoint |
IPGOD is genuinely well-published and free — if you only need Australia data and you have engineering time for the periodic CSV refresh, it's a strong direct path. The Trade Mark Search API is the right call when you want live freshness and you're prepared to navigate the two-gate portal provisioning. Signa exists for the case where you want Australia to look like every other office in your stack and arrive without you running a pipeline.
IPAU API — Frequently asked questions
Everything developers ask before integrating IP Australia data
Need something else? See our documentation
IP Australia API basics
Coverage & freshness
Need something else? See our documentation
Ready to search 2.3M IP Australia trademarks via API?
Start with 1,000 free IP Australia requests/month. 2.3M records indexed, normalized data across 20+ offices through the same endpoint.
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