The NIPO API for trademark search
Access 572K Patentstyret (Norwegian Industrial Property Office) records via API. Normalized data, sub-second response, and daily sync — all through Signa's unified trademark API.
Search NIPO in one POST request.
One REST endpoint. Filter by offices: ['NIPO'] to scope to ~572K NIPO records, or drop the filter to search every office.
Sub-300ms p95 on NIPO 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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572K records
NIPO register indexed and queryable through one endpoint.
Daily sync
Database synced regularly with NIPO's source publication.
100% field accuracy
Validated against NIPO source data across a 1,600-field spot-check audit.
Normalized schema
12 raw NIPO status codes mapped to a canonical status object — same shape across every office.
What is NIPO?
Patentstyret — the Norwegian Industrial Property Office (NIPO in English-language contexts) — is the government agency under Norway's Ministry of Trade, Industry and Fisheries that examines and registers trademarks for the Kingdom of Norway. The most important thing to know up front: Norway is an EFTA and EEA member but is NOT in the European Union. An EU Trade Mark (EUTM) does not cover Norway. To protect a mark in Norway you either file a national application directly with Patentstyret, or file an international registration through Madrid and designate NO. There is no EU shortcut.
The Norwegian register sits at roughly 572,800 trademark records, with about 22,000 new applications filed each year — the smallest production register Signa carries, but a strategically important one for Nordic and European brand portfolios. The register is maintained primarily in Norwegian (Bokmål); the Madrid Protocol has been in force in Norway since 1996, and Madrid designations of Norway make up about 44% of all NIPO records. Examination is fast by global standards, opposition runs for three months from publication of registration, and protection lasts ten years renewable indefinitely under the Norwegian Trademarks Act (Varemerkeloven).
Patentstyret publishes its register through a public OpenData REST API (api.patentstyret.no/external/opendata/...) licensed under NLOD 2.0 — free with attribution, commercial use permitted. The API returns ST.97 v5.0 trademark records with a Norwegian-specific extension. Signa ingests the full register through the same endpoint Patentstyret offers directly, normalizes the Norwegian status vocabulary (Registrert, Endelig henlagt, Opphørt, and nine others) into the canonical schema used for USPTO and EUIPO, and serves bilingual status fields so you don't need to read Norwegian to filter the data.
Unique features
- Norway is NOT in the EU — an EUTM does not cover Norway, so a separate Norwegian national filing or Madrid designation of NO is required for protection
- Madrid Protocol member since 1996 — Madrid designations of Norway make up roughly 44% of NIPO records
- Nordic IP cooperation — Patentstyret coordinates with the Swedish (PRV), Danish (DKPTO), Finnish (PRH), and Icelandic (ISIPO) offices on examination practice and policy
- Three-month opposition window — measured from publication of registration; one of the shorter opposition periods in Europe
- Fast first-action examination — typically a few months under standard prosecution, faster than EUIPO's average
- Norwegian-language register — official record is in Bokmål; the OpenData API exposes bilingual status fields (currentStatusNo + currentStatusEn) so non-Norwegian consumers get an English label out of the box
- NLOD 2.0 open data licence — full register published free with attribution required and commercial use permitted, no scraping needed
- Portfolio-by-organisation endpoint — IprCasesByCompany returns all trademarks + patents + designs for a Norwegian entity in a single response (queried by 9-digit company number)
Patentstyret OpenData API vs Signa.
Patentstyret runs one of the cleaner public IP APIs in Europe — a self-service developer portal, an NLOD 2.0 open-data licence, and a single REST endpoint that handles both backfill and incremental sync. It's also raw Norwegian ST.97 with a dozen native status codes (in Bokmål) and no built-in search ranking beyond date and applicant filters. Here's what changes when you use Signa instead.
| Dimension | Patentstyret OpenData API | Signa |
|---|---|---|
| Setup | Register at developer.patentstyret.no for a subscription key, fix the undocumented /external/opendata/ URL prefix (the published examples omit it), parse ST.97 v5.0 with NIPO NO_V5_1 extension | Sign up, copy API key, curl the endpoint |
| Data shape | Raw ST.97 JSON in Norwegian (Bokmål) with 12 native status codes; you write the language and status normalization yourself | Normalized JSON with canonical status object, English labels, and the same schema used across every Signa-supported office |
| Search | Date-range, applicant-name, owner-name, and trademark-text filters via POST search/json — no full-text relevance ranking, no fuzzy matching, no image search | Full-text, fuzzy, phonetic, and image search out of the box |
| Freshness | Single endpoint serves both backfill and incremental via updatedDateFrom; you build the watermarking and pagination loop | Pre-ingested daily; new and updated records queryable within minutes of Patentstyret publishing them |
| Coverage | Norway only — add EUIPO (which does NOT cover Norway), WIPO, USPTO separately, each with its own auth, format, and rate limit | NIPO + 20 other offices through the same endpoint, with Madrid designations of Norway joined back to the WIPO IR |
Patentstyret's OpenData API is genuinely well-built and the right choice if you only need Norway and you're comfortable with Norwegian-language fields and ST.97 ingestion. Signa exists for the case where you want Norway to look identical to the other twenty offices in your stack, and you don't want to maintain a separate connector for a country that EUTMs don't cover.
NIPO API — Frequently asked questions
Everything developers ask before integrating NIPO data
Need something else? See our documentation
Patentstyret API basics
Coverage & freshness
Need something else? See our documentation
Ready to search 572K NIPO trademarks via API?
Start with 1,000 free NIPO requests/month. 572K records indexed, normalized data across 20+ offices through the same endpoint.
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