librarian-uspto
A patent search backend for librarian's
research loop: granted US patents and published applications through the
USPTO Open Data Portal (ODP) API. It answers librarian's science category,
so patents reach the research selector beside papers.
Why: in librarian's search comparison, 5 of the 7 trusted sources WebSearch found for a camera-tracking topic were USPTO patents, and SearXNG ships no patent engine.
Install
Install into the same environment as librarian, then route science to
it with your other science sources:
uv pip install librarian-uspto
# librarian's .env
USPTO_API_KEY=... # an ODP key (data.uspto.gov); sent as X-API-KEY
RESEARCH_SEARCH_ROUTES=web: searxng; video: searxng; science: scholarly, uspto, searxng
Without USPTO_API_KEY a search returns nothing, says why, and sends
nothing.
What it searches, and why that way
What ODP's search said on October 1, 2026:
- It covers application metadata (title, numbers, dates, applicant, classification), not abstracts or claims.
- Free text matches any word in any field: "camera tracking solver" matched 106,891 records, the first five titled "Camera".
- Results come newest first, not by relevance, and a search with no hits answers 404.
So this backend searches titles. It first asks for titles naming every
content word of the topic, each as a prefix ("solver" matches "solving"),
among applications with public text (a patent or publication number). When
none match, it asks for titles naming any n-1 of the n words, then any n-2,
each step one request (USPTO_MAX_ATTEMPTS, 4). librarian's science ranking
then puts the titles that name the most of the topic first.
Each result links to the whole document as a PDF on image-ppubs.uspto.gov (a granted patent by number, a published application by publication number), which librarian ingests as one document, with OCR when its pages are scans. The snippet carries the number, dates, applicant, and first CPC classifications; ODP returns no abstract to show.
Settings
| Setting | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
USPTO_API_KEY |
empty | Your ODP API key |
USPTO_MAX_ATTEMPTS |
4 | Requests one search may make while broadening |
USPTO_MIN_INTERVAL_SECONDS |
1.1 | Seconds between requests |
USPTO_COOLDOWN_SECONDS |
600 | How long a refusal (429, 503) stops requests, doubling while it repeats, unless the reply sends Retry-After |
USPTO_TIMEOUT_SECONDS |
30 | Per request |
Replies, and searches that found nothing, are cached with librarian's search cache; the key is sent in a header and never cached.
License
1 maintainer
Metadata
1 maintainer
Release files for librarian-uspto 0.1.0
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Source distribution (sdist)
| File | Size | Uploaded | Provenance | Actions |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| librarian_uspto-0.1.0.tar.gz | 12.4 kB | With provenance | Details for librarian_uspto-0.1.0.tar.gz |
Built distribution (wheel)
| File | Interpreter | ABI | Platform | Actions Reset |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| librarian_uspto-0.1.0-py3-none-any.whl | Python 3 | none | any | Details for librarian_uspto-0.1.0-py3-none-any.whl |
Total release size: 24.3 kB
Release files / librarian_uspto-0.1.0.tar.gz
| Download URL | librarian_uspto-0.1.0.tar.gz |
|---|---|
| Size | 12.4 kB |
| Tags | Source |
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SHA-256 checksum How to use checksums |
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| Download URL | librarian_uspto-0.1.0-py3-none-any.whl |
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| Size | 11.9 kB |
| Tags | Python 3 |
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SHA-256 checksum How to use checksums |
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| Uploaded via |
twine/7.0.0 CPython/3.13.14
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Attestation for librarian_uspto-0.1.0.tar.gz
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Signed by GitHub Actions, verified by PyPI on Oct 2, 2026.
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