Lens

Lens Scholarly API

Search and retrieve scholarly works.

Documentation GitHub OpenAPI

Operations 3

GET /scholarly/search Search scholarly works (GET)

POST /scholarly/search Search scholarly works (POST)

GET /scholarly/{lens_id} Get a scholarly work by Lens ID

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OpenAPI Specification

openapi: 3.2.0
info:
  title: Lens Patents Scholarly API
  description: The Lens API provides programmatic access to the full corpus of Lens scholarly works and patents using a REST interface. The API supports rich Elasticsearch-style query DSL for searching scholarly publications and global patent records, with cursor-based pagination, sorting, and field projection. Authentication is via a bearer token issued from the Lens user profile.
  version: '1.0'
  contact:
    name: Lens API Support
    url: https://docs.api.lens.org/
  license:
    name: Lens API Terms
    url: https://www.lens.org/lens/terms-and-conditions
servers:
- url: https://api.lens.org
  description: Lens production API
security:
- bearerAuth: []
tags:
- name: Scholarly
  description: Search and retrieve scholarly works.
paths:
  /scholarly/search:
    get:
      tags:
      - Scholarly
      summary: Search scholarly works (GET)
      description: Search the Lens scholarly works index using URL query parameters. Suitable for simple keyword searches and small result sets. Use the POST variant for complex queries and cursor pagination.
      parameters:
      - name: query
        in: query
        required: true
        description: Lucene-style query string (e.g. "title:graphene AND year:2024").
        schema:
          type: string
      - name: size
        in: query
        description: Number of records per page (max 1000 for Patents/Scholarly subject to plan).
        schema:
          type: integer
          default: 20
          minimum: 1
      - name: from
        in: query
        description: Offset for offset/size pagination. Cannot exceed 10000 in total.
        schema:
          type: integer
          default: 0
      - name: sort
        in: query
        description: Comma-separated sort directives (e.g. "desc(patent_citation_count)").
        schema:
          type: string
      - name: include
        in: query
        description: Comma-separated list of fields to include in the response.
        schema:
          type: string
      - name: exclude
        in: query
        description: Comma-separated list of fields to exclude from the response.
        schema:
          type: string
      responses:
        '200':
          description: Successful response
          content:
            application/json:
              schema:
                $ref: '#/components/schemas/ScholarlyResponse'
        '400':
          $ref: '#/components/responses/BadRequest'
        '401':
          $ref: '#/components/responses/Unauthorized'
        '429':
          $ref: '#/components/responses/RateLimited'
    post:
      tags:
      - Scholarly
      summary: Search scholarly works (POST)
      description: Submit a structured Elasticsearch-style query against the Lens scholarly works index. Supports term, terms, match, match_phrase, range, bool, and query_string queries, plus cursor-based pagination via the `scroll` and `scroll_id` parameters.
      requestBody:
        required: true
        content:
          application/json:
            schema:
              $ref: '#/components/schemas/ScholarlyRequest'
      responses:
        '200':
          description: Successful response
          content:
            application/json:
              schema:
                $ref: '#/components/schemas/ScholarlyResponse'
        '400':
          $ref: '#/components/responses/BadRequest'
        '401':
          $ref: '#/components/responses/Unauthorized'
        '429':
          $ref: '#/components/responses/RateLimited'
  /scholarly/{lens_id}:
    get:
      tags:
      - Scholarly
      summary: Get a scholarly work by Lens ID
      description: Retrieve a single scholarly work by its unique Lens identifier.
      parameters:
      - name: lens_id
        in: path
        required: true
        description: Unique Lens identifier for the scholarly work.
        schema:
          type: string
      responses:
        '200':
          description: Successful response
          content:
            application/json:
              schema:
                $ref: '#/components/schemas/ScholarlyWork'
        '401':
          $ref: '#/components/responses/Unauthorized'
        '404':
          $ref: '#/components/responses/NotFound'
components:
  schemas:
    SearchRequestBase:
      type: object
      properties:
        query:
          description: Elasticsearch-style query DSL object.
          type: object
          additionalProperties: true
        sort:
          type: array
          items:
            type: object
            additionalProperties: true
        include:
          type: array
          items:
            type: string
        exclude:
          type: array
          items:
            type: string
        size:
          type: integer
          default: 20
        from:
          type: integer
          default: 0
        scroll:
          type: string
          description: Lifespan for cursor-based pagination (e.g. "1m").
        scroll_id:
          type: string
          description: Cursor returned by a previous response for pagination.
        min_score:
          type: number
        stemming:
          type: boolean
          default: true
        regex:
          type: boolean
          default: false
      required:
      - query
    Error:
      type: object
      properties:
        message:
          type: string
        code:
          type: integer
    ScholarlyResponse:
      allOf:
      - $ref: '#/components/schemas/SearchResponseBase'
      - type: object
        properties:
          data:
            type: array
            items:
              $ref: '#/components/schemas/ScholarlyWork'
    ScholarlyRequest:
      allOf:
      - $ref: '#/components/schemas/SearchRequestBase'
    SearchResponseBase:
      type: object
      properties:
        total:
          type: integer
        results:
          type: integer
        scroll_id:
          type: string
        data:
          type: array
          items:
            type: object
            additionalProperties: true
    ScholarlyWork:
      type: object
      description: A scholarly work record (Lens scholarly schema v1.6.8).
      properties:
        lens_id:
          type: string
        publication_type:
          type: string
        title:
          type: string
        publication_year:
          type: integer
        authors:
          type: array
          items:
            type: object
            properties:
              first_name:
                type: string
              last_name:
                type: string
              orcid:
                type: string
        source:
          type: object
          properties:
            title:
              type: string
            issn:
              type: array
              items:
                type: string
            publisher:
              type: string
        external_ids:
          type: array
          items:
            type: object
            properties:
              type:
                type: string
              value:
                type: string
        abstract:
          type: string
        scholarly_citations_count:
          type: integer
        patent_citations_count:
          type: integer
  responses:
    RateLimited:
      description: Plan quota or rate limit exceeded
      content:
        application/json:
          schema:
            $ref: '#/components/schemas/Error'
    NotFound:
      description: Record not found
      content:
        application/json:
          schema:
            $ref: '#/components/schemas/Error'
    BadRequest:
      description: Malformed request
      content:
        application/json:
          schema:
            $ref: '#/components/schemas/Error'
    Unauthorized:
      description: Missing or invalid token
      content:
        application/json:
          schema:
            $ref: '#/components/schemas/Error'
  securitySchemes:
    bearerAuth:
      type: http
      scheme: bearer
      bearerFormat: JWT
      description: API token issued from the Lens user profile (Plans & Tokens).