MIT APItlo.mit.edu ↗
Search and retrieve MIT Technology Licensing Office available technologies. Filter by keyword, license status, technology area, and impact area via 2 endpoints.
What is the MIT API?
The MIT TLO API provides 2 endpoints for searching and retrieving available technologies listed by MIT's Technology Licensing Office. The search_technologies endpoint returns paginated summaries — including title, case number, researchers, technology areas, and impact areas — with filtering by license status, technology area, and impact area taxonomy IDs. The get_technology endpoint returns full descriptions and invention type for a specific listing identified by its URL slug.
curl -X GET 'https://api.parse.bot/scraper/582f973e-da78-4a2c-a848-a5a49ffa91ae/search_technologies?page=0&query=robotics&license_status=U' \ -H 'X-API-Key: $PARSE_API_KEY'
Typed, relational, agent-ready
A generated client with real types, enums, and the links between objects — the structure a flat JSON response can't carry. Autocompletes in your editor and reads cleanly to coding agents.
- Fully typed · autocompletes
- Objects link to objects
- Typed errors & pagination
Typed Python client. Set up the SDK in your uv project, then pull this API’s typed client:
uv add parse-sdk uv run parse init uv run parse add --marketplace tlo-mit-edu-api
uv run parse add --marketplace pulls a pinned snapshot of this canonical API — it won’t change underneath you. To customize it, subscribe and swap to your own copy.
from parse_apis.mit_technology_licensing_office_tlo_api import MitTlo, TechnologySummary, Technology, LicenseStatus
client = MitTlo()
# Search for robotics technologies filtered to unlicensed only
for tech in client.technologysummaries.search(query="robotics", license_status=LicenseStatus.UNLICENSED):
print(tech.title, tech.case_number, tech.researchers, tech.technology_areas)
# Get full details for a specific technology by slug
detail = client.technologies.get(slug="regenerative-bioreactor-ion-concentration-0")
print(detail.title, detail.case_number, detail.invention_type)
print(detail.researchers, detail.description[:200])
# Navigate from summary to detail
for summary in client.technologysummaries.search(query="energy", limit=3):
full = summary.details()
print(full.title, full.invention_type, full.impact_areas)
Search and list available technologies from MIT TLO. Returns paginated results with technology summaries including title, case number, researchers, technology areas, and impact areas. Supports filtering by search query, license status, technology area, and impact area. Returns up to 20 results per page. Facet counts provide taxonomy IDs and researcher counts for further filtering. Pagination is zero-based.
| Param | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| page | integer | Zero-based page number for pagination. |
| query | string | Full-text search query to filter technologies (e.g. 'robotics', 'machine learning'). |
| impact_area | string | Comma-separated numeric taxonomy IDs for impact area filters. IDs can be found in the facet_counts of the response. |
| license_status | string | Comma-separated license status codes to filter by. Accepts: U (Unlicensed), EL (Exclusively Licensed), NEL (Non-Exclusively Licensed). Example: 'U' or 'U,EL'. |
| technology_area | string | Comma-separated numeric taxonomy IDs for technology area filters. IDs can be found in the facet_counts of the response. |
{
"type": "object",
"fields": {
"page": "integer - current page number",
"query": "string - the search query used",
"results": "array of technology summary objects",
"facet_counts": "object mapping facet labels to counts, or null",
"result_count": "integer - number of results on current page"
},
"sample": {
"data": {
"page": 0,
"query": "robotics",
"results": [
{
"url": "https://tlo.mit.edu/industry-entrepreneurs/available-technologies/lab-master-abstracted-and-comprehensive-laboratory",
"slug": "lab-master-abstracted-and-comprehensive-laboratory",
"title": "Lab Master - Abstracted and Comprehensive Laboratory Management",
"case_number": "26543",
"researchers": "Connor Wilson Coley",
"impact_areas": [
"Connected World"
],
"invention_type": "Software",
"license_action": "License",
"technology_areas": [
"Industrial Engineering & Automation"
]
}
],
"facet_counts": {
"Unlicensed": 94,
"Exclusively Licensed": 10
},
"result_count": 20
},
"status": "success"
}
}About the MIT API
What the API Covers
This API exposes the catalog of technologies MIT's Technology Licensing Office has made available for licensing or partnership. Each record ties a named invention to its MIT case number, a list of researchers, one or more technology area classifications, and one or more impact area classifications. License status codes (U for Unlicensed, EL for Exclusively Licensed, NEL for Non-Exclusively Licensed) let you narrow results to only those currently open for negotiation.
search_technologies Endpoint
The search_technologies endpoint accepts a free-text query parameter alongside taxonomy filter parameters — technology_area and impact_area — which accept comma-separated numeric IDs. Those IDs are surfaced in the facet_counts object returned with every response, so you can discover valid filter values dynamically rather than hardcoding them. Results are zero-indexed via the page parameter. Each result in the results array includes a slug field used to fetch full details.
get_technology Endpoint
Passing a slug from search results to get_technology returns the complete record: the full description text, invention_type (e.g. Technology, Software), case_number, researchers array, technology_areas array, and impact_areas array. The url field provides the canonical MIT TLO page for citation or linking. Some fields such as impact_areas and technology_areas are noted as available only when present on the source record.
The MIT API is a managed, monitored endpoint for tlo.mit.edu — not a raw scraper you maintain. Every endpoint is automatically health-checked on a schedule, and when tlo.mit.edu changes and a check fails, the API is automatically queued for repair and re-verified. It is built to keep working as the site underneath it changes.
This isn't an official tlo.mit.edu API — it's an independent, maintained REST wrapper over public data. Where the source has no official API (or only a limited one), Parse gives you a stable contract over a source that never promised one, and keeps it current. Need a new endpoint or field? You can revise it yourself in plain English and the agent rebuilds it against the live site in minutes — contributing the change back to the shared API is free.
Will this API break when the source site changes?+
Is this an official API from the source site?+
Can I fix or extend this API myself if I need a new endpoint or field?+
What happens if I call an endpoint that has an issue?+
- Identify unlicensed MIT technologies in a specific domain using the
license_status=Ufilter and a keywordquery - Build a searchable directory of MIT innovations filtered by impact area taxonomy IDs from
facet_counts - Monitor when new technologies appear in a given
technology_areaby pollingsearch_technologieson a schedule - Retrieve full researcher attribution and case numbers via
get_technologyfor due-diligence workflows - Enumerate available software inventions by combining
technology_areafilters withinvention_typefrom detail responses - Map MIT research output to commercial sectors by aggregating
impact_areasandtechnology_areasacross all paginated results
| Tier | Price | Credits/month | Rate limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0/mo | 100 | 5 req/min |
| Hobby | $30/mo | 1,000 | 20 req/min |
| Developer | $100/mo | 5,000 | 100 req/min |
One credit = one API call regardless of which marketplace API you call. Exceeding the rate limit returns a 429 response. Authenticate with the X-API-Key header.
Does MIT TLO have an official developer API?+
How do I find valid values for the technology_area and impact_area filter parameters?+
search_technologies includes a facet_counts object that maps facet labels to result counts. The numeric taxonomy IDs used as filter values are embedded in those facet keys. You can call the endpoint once without filters to collect valid IDs, then reuse them in subsequent filtered requests.Does the API return contact information for licensing inquiries or TLO staff?+
Does the API include technologies that are already fully licensed or no longer available?+
license_status filter accepts EL (Exclusively Licensed) and NEL (Non-Exclusively Licensed) codes in addition to U (Unlicensed), so exclusively licensed and non-exclusively licensed records are included in the dataset alongside unlicensed ones. The API returns whatever records MIT TLO lists in its available technologies catalog.