Lens website screenshot

Lens

Lens is an open knowledge platform from Cambia that aggregates global scholarly works and patent records and exposes them through a REST API. The versioned API supports rich Elasticsearch-style queries, cursor pagination, and field projection across the full Lens scholarly and patent corpora, enabling research, science policy, technology landscape, and patent intelligence applications.

Lens publishes 2 APIs on the APIs.io network: Patents API and Scholarly API. Tagged areas include Scholarly, Patents, Research, Science, and Open Data.

Lens’ developer surface includes authentication, documentation, and 9 more developer resources.

🌐 Visit website 📡 Source on GitHub
41.1/100 thin ▬ flat Agent 31/100 agent aware Full breakdown ↓
scored 2026-07-28 · rubric v0.6
AccessFreemiumSelf serve⚡ Free to try
2 APIs
ScholarlyPatentsResearchScienceOpen Data

Kin Score

Kin Score Kin Score How this is scored →
scored 2026-07-28 · rubric v0.6
Composite quality — 41.1/100 · thin
Contract Quality 14.2 / 25
Developer Ergonomics 3.9 / 20
Commercial Clarity 12.1 / 20
Operational Transparency 4.8 / 13
Governance 0.0 / 12
Discoverability 6.9 / 10
Agent readiness — 31/100 · agent aware
Machine-Readable Contract 18 / 18
Agentic Access Contract 10 / 10
MCP Server 0 / 12
Machine-Readable Auth 10 / 10
Idempotency 0 / 9
Stable Error Semantics 0 / 8
Request/Response Examples 0 / 7
Rate-Limit Signaling 7 / 7
Typed Event Surface 0 / 6
Agent Skills 0 / 5
Well-Known Catalog 0 / 4
Consent & Bot Identity 0 / 3
A2A Agent Card 0 / 8
Dry-Run / Simulate Mode 0 / 4
Improve this rating by publishing the missing artifacts — every area above can be raised, and the full rubric is at apis.io/rating/. This rating is computed from github.com/api-evangelist/lens: open an issue to ask a question, or submit a pull request to add artifacts. Want it done for you? Prioritized profiling — $2,500 →

APIs 2

Individual APIs this provider publishes, each with its own machine-readable definition.

Lens Patents API

Search and retrieve global patent records.

Lens Scholarly API

Search and retrieve scholarly works.

Open Collections 1

Open, tool-agnostic API collections (OpenAPI-derived and Bruno).

Lens API

OPEN COLLECTION

Pricing Plans 1

Published pricing tiers and plan structures.

Lens Plans Pricing

3 plans

PLANS

Rate Limits 1

Documented rate limits and quota policies.

Lens Rate Limits

5 limits

RATE LIMITS

FinOps 1

Cost, billing, and metering signals for API financial operations.

Lens Finops

FINOPS

Security Posture 2

Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals.

Lens Authentication

http · 1 scheme

SECURITY

Lens Domain Security

TLSv1.2 · HSTS · DMARC

SECURITY

Agentic Access 1

Recommended x-agentic-access execution contracts for AI agents.

Lens Agentic Access

6 operations · 2 acting

6 operations · 2 acting

AGENTIC

Resources

Documentation 1

Reference material describing how the API behaves

Documentation
Documentation

Agent Surfaces 1

MCP servers, agent skills, and machine-readable catalogs

AgenticAccess
AgenticAccess

Build 1

SDKs, sample code, and the tooling you integrate with

GitHubOrganization
GitHubOrganization

Access & Security 2

Authentication, authorization, and security posture

DomainSecurity
DomainSecurity
 Authentication
Authentication

Commercial 3

Pricing, plans, and the legal terms of use

Plans
Plans
 TermsOfService
TermsOfService
 PrivacyPolicy
PrivacyPolicy

Company 3

The organization behind the API

LinkedIn
LinkedIn
 Website
Website
 About
About

Source (apis.yml)

apis.yml Raw ↑ 
aid: lens
name: Lens
description: Lens is an open knowledge platform from Cambia that aggregates global scholarly works and patent records and
  exposes them through a REST API. The versioned API supports rich Elasticsearch-style queries, cursor pagination, and field
  projection across the full Lens scholarly and patent corpora, enabling research, science policy, technology landscape, and
  patent intelligence applications.
type: Index
accessModel:
  pricing: freemium
  onboarding: self-serve
  trial: false
  try_now: true
  public: false
  label: Freemium · Self-serve signup
  confidence: high
  source:
  - plans
  - authentication
  generated: '2026-07-22'
  method: derived
position: Consumer
access: 3rd-Party
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/icons/lens.png
tags:
- Scholarly
- Patents
- Research
- Science
- Open Data
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/lens/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
created: '2025-02-06'
modified: '2026-05-19'
specificationVersion: '0.19'
apis:
- aid: lens:lens-patents-api
  name: Lens Patents API
  description: Search and retrieve global patent records.
  humanURL: https://docs.api.lens.org/
  baseURL: https://api.lens.org
  tags:
  - Patents
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/lens-patents-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://docs.api.lens.org/
  - type: SwaggerUI
    url: https://api.lens.org/swagger-ui.html
- aid: lens:lens-scholarly-api
  name: Lens Scholarly API
  description: Search and retrieve scholarly works.
  humanURL: https://docs.api.lens.org/
  baseURL: https://api.lens.org
  tags:
  - Scholarly
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/lens-scholarly-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://docs.api.lens.org/
  - type: SwaggerUI
    url: https://api.lens.org/swagger-ui.html
common:
- type: AgenticAccess
  url: agentic-access/lens-agentic-access.yml
- type: DomainSecurity
  url: security/lens-domain-security.yml
- type: Authentication
  url: authentication/lens-authentication.yml
- type: GitHubOrganization
  url: https://github.com/lensapp
- type: LinkedIn
  url: https://www.linkedin.com/company/k8slens
- url: https://www.lens.org/
  type: Website
- url: https://docs.api.lens.org/
  type: Documentation
- url: https://www.lens.org/lens/user/subscriptions
  type: Plans
- url: https://www.lens.org/lens/about
  type: About
- url: https://www.lens.org/lens/terms-and-conditions
  type: TermsOfService
- url: https://www.lens.org/lens/privacy-policy
  type: PrivacyPolicy
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com