patent-client-agents 0.3.1

Intellectual property research toolkit for AI agents — patents, trademarks, and prosecution data from USPTO, EPO, JPO, Google Patents, MPEP, and CPC

IP Tools

Give your AI agent access to the world's patent data.

Inside Claude Code:

/plugin marketplace add parkerhancock/ip_tools
/plugin install patent-client-agents@patent-client-agents
/reload-plugins

See docs/installation.md for all seven install modes.

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What You Can Do

Ask Claude to research patents in natural language:

"Find Tesla's recent battery patents and summarize the key innovations"

"What's the prosecution history for US Patent 11,234,567?"

"Compare Apple and Samsung's patent portfolios in mobile display technology"

"Track the legal status of EP3456789 across all designated states"

IP Tools connects Claude Code to USPTO, EPO, JPO, and Google Patents, giving your agent the ability to search, analyze, and report on intellectual property worldwide.

Coverage

Source	What You Get
Google Patents	Global search, full-text, citations, PDFs, families
USPTO ODP	Applications, prosecution history, PTAB trials & appeals, petitions, bulk data
USPTO Publications	Patent Public Search (PPUBS) full-text search and document retrieval
USPTO Assignments	Patent ownership transfers and reel/frame lookups
USPTO Office Actions	Rejection analytics, cited references, full-text OA retrieval
EPO OPS	European patents, Inpadoc families, legal events, EP Register
JPO	Japanese patents, examination history, PCT national phase
MPEP	Manual of Patent Examining Procedure search and section lookup
CPC	Classification hierarchy lookup, search, and CPC/IPC mapping

All sources include automatic caching (hishel + SQLite with WAL), rate limiting, and retry logic via law_tools_core.

Install

For Claude Code users — run these inside a Claude Code session:

/plugin marketplace add parkerhancock/ip_tools
/plugin install patent-client-agents@patent-client-agents
/reload-plugins

Three slash commands (not shell). You get all 63 patent MCP tools exposed to the agent. Prereq: uv on PATH — the MCP server runs under uvx so you don't pip install anything yourself.

Seven install modes are documented in docs/installation.md — Python library, Python+MCP runtime, Claude Code plugin, dev symlink, stdio MCP, Cowork remote MCP, and generic remote MCP. Pick the one that matches how you'll use it.

API keys

Variable	Source	Required	How to get
USPTO_ODP_API_KEY	USPTO ODP	Most USPTO tools	developer.uspto.gov (free)
EPO_OPS_API_KEY, EPO_OPS_API_SECRET	EPO OPS	All EPO tools	developers.epo.org (free)
JPO_API_USERNAME, JPO_API_PASSWORD	JPO	JPO tools only	j-platpat.inpit.go.jp

No API key needed: Google Patents, USPTO Publications (PPUBS), USPTO Assignments, MPEP, CPC.

Quickstart — Python library

pip install patent-client-agents

from patent_client_agents.google_patents import GooglePatentsClient

async with GooglePatentsClient() as client:
    patent = await client.get_patent_data("US10123456B2")
    print(patent.title)
    print(patent.abstract)

    results = await client.search_patents(keywords=["machine learning neural network"])
    for r in results.results:
        print(f"{r.publication_number}: {r.title}")

Detailed Coverage

Google Patents

Feature	Description
Patent lookup	Fetch by publication number
Full-text search	Keyword, assignee, inventor search
Claims & description	Full-text content
Citations	Forward and backward citations
Patent families	Related applications
PDF download	Full document PDFs

USPTO Open Data Portal

Feature	Description
Applications
Application search	Search by number, date, status
Application details	Bibliographic data, status
Continuity data	Parent/child relationships
Foreign priority	Priority claims
Assignments	Ownership records
Attorneys	Attorney/agent of record
Transactions	Office action history
Adjustments	PTA/PTE data
PTAB Trials
IPR/PGR/CBM search	Search inter partes reviews
Trial details	Party info, status, decisions
Trial documents	Petitions, responses, decisions
PTAB Appeals
Appeal search	Ex parte appeals
Appeal details	Status, decisions
Bulk Data
Bulk downloads	XML/JSON data packages
Full-text grants	Weekly patent grants
Full-text applications	Weekly applications

USPTO Assignments

Feature	Description
Assignment search	Search by reel/frame, patent
Assignment details	Parties, conveyance type
Property lookup	Patents in assignment

EPO OPS

Feature	Description
Published Data (Inpadoc)
Patent search	CQL query search
Family search	Search grouped by family
Bibliographic data	Titles, abstracts, parties
Claims	Full claim text
Description	Full description text
Legal events	Status changes, fees
Patent families	INPADOC family members
PDF download	Full document PDFs
Number conversion	Format conversion
EP Register
Register search	Search EP applications
Register biblio	Detailed EP data
Procedural steps	Prosecution history
Register events	EPO Bulletin events
Designated states	Validation countries
Opposition data	Opposition proceedings
Unitary Patent	UPP status and states
Classification
CPC lookup	Classification hierarchy
CPC search	Keyword search
CPC mapping	CPC/IPC/ECLA conversion

JPO (Japan Patent Office)

Feature	Description
Patent progress	Application status
Examination history	Office actions
Documents	Filed documents
Citations	Cited prior art
Family info	Divisionals, priorities
Registration	Grant details
PCT national phase	JP national entry lookup
Design/trademark	Similar methods available

Architecture

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                     Claude Code Agent                        │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│                    IP Tools MCP Server                       │
│              (Natural language → API calls)                  │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│                   patent_client_agents Library                           │
│    ┌──────────┐  ┌──────────┐  ┌──────────┐  ┌──────────┐   │
│    │  USPTO   │  │   EPO    │  │  Google  │  │   JPO    │   │
│    │   ODP    │  │   OPS    │  │ Patents  │  │          │   │
│    └──────────┘  └──────────┘  └──────────┘  └──────────┘   │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Development

git clone https://github.com/parkerhancock/ip_tools.git
cd patent_client_agents
uv sync --group dev
uv run pytest                       # 767 tests, replays VCR cassettes
uv run ruff check . && uv run ruff format .

Tests use vcrpy to replay recorded HTTP interactions without hitting live APIs. Record modes:

uv run pytest --vcr-record=once     # Record missing cassettes
uv run pytest --vcr-record=all      # Re-record everything
uv run pytest --run-live-uspto      # Skip VCR, hit live USPTO
uv run pytest --run-live-jpo        # Skip VCR, hit live JPO

API errors follow a log-first pattern — concise messages with a path to ~/.cache/patent_client_agents/patent_client_agents.log for full stacktraces.

The shared HTTP scaffolding (BaseAsyncClient, cache, exceptions, retry, logging) ships as the law_tools_core package inside this same wheel — other libraries in the same family import it directly.

Related

• patent_client - The original patent data library this project builds on

License

Apache-2.0