patent-client-agents 0.9.1

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

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

Full documentation: docs.patentclient.com

Use the hosted demo

The fastest path — nothing to install. Point your MCP-speaking client at the public demo at mcp.patentclient.com:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "patent-client-agents": {
      "url": "https://mcp.patentclient.com/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Or add a custom connector in CoWork / Claude Desktop with just the URL https://mcp.patentclient.com/mcp — no tokens to paste. On first connect you'll be sent to Google sign-in; approve and you're in. Any verified Google account works. Usage is rate-limited per account (100 MB/day, 20 MB/minute).

This is a public demo — don't send confidential material through it. See the Terms of Use.

Or install locally (Claude Code plugin)

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

See docs.patentclient.com/installation for all seven install modes.

---

What You Can Do

Ask Claude to research patents and trademarks in natural language:

"Find [Company]'s recent battery patents and summarize the key innovations"

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

"Compare [Company A] and [Company B]'s patent portfolios in mobile display technology"

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

"What's the current status of trademark serial 97123456, and who filed it?"

"Search the TMEP for guidance on Section 2(d) likelihood-of-confusion refusals"

patent-client-agents connects Claude Code to USPTO (patents and trademarks), EPO, Google Patents, and JPO, giving your agent the ability to search, analyze, and report on intellectual property worldwide. JPO MCP tools register on the local stdio server and the Claude Code plugin when JPO_API_USERNAME and JPO_API_PASSWORD are set; the hosted demo at mcp.patentclient.com does not carry JPO credentials, so JPO tools don't appear there.

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
USPTO TSDR	Trademark Status & Document Retrieval — status, docs, mark images
USPTO Trademark Assignments	Trademark ownership transfers (Assignment Center)
EPO OPS	European patents, Inpadoc families, legal events, EP Register
JPO	Japanese patents, examination history, PCT national phase — MCP tools register when JPO_API_USERNAME + JPO_API_PASSWORD are set; not exposed by the hosted demo
MPEP	Manual of Patent Examining Procedure search and section lookup
TMEP	Trademark Manual of Examining Procedure search and section lookup
CPC	Classification hierarchy lookup, search, and CPC/IPC mapping
CanLII	Canadian courts, tribunals, and IP statutes — Federal Court / FCA / Supreme Court IP rulings, Trade-marks Opposition Board, Patent Appeal Board, Patent Act, Trademarks Act with point-in-time queries — MCP tools register when CANLII_API_KEY is set; not exposed by the hosted demo
WIPO Lex	Global IP statute / treaty / judgment database curated by WIPO — ~50k legal documents across ~200 jurisdictions, six UN languages. v0.9 scope: legislation collection (search + detail with PDF links)

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/patent-client-agents
/plugin install patent-client-agents@patent-client-agents
/reload-plugins

Three slash commands (not shell). You get 51 patent + IP MCP tools exposed to the agent by default (63 with JPO credentials in the environment; 60 / 72 with CANLII_API_KEY also set). Prereq: uv on PATH — the MCP server runs under uvx so you don't pip install anything yourself.

Seven install modes are documented at docs.patentclient.com/installation — 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 patent tools	developer.uspto.gov (free)
USPTO_TSDR_API_KEY	USPTO TSDR	All TSDR trademark tools	account.uspto.gov/api-manager/ (free MyUSPTO account)
EPO_OPS_API_KEY, EPO_OPS_API_SECRET	EPO OPS	All EPO tools	developers.epo.org (free)
JPO_API_USERNAME, JPO_API_PASSWORD	JPO	All JPO library + MCP tools (env-gated on the stdio server / plugin; not set on the hosted demo)	j-platpat.inpit.go.jp
CANLII_API_KEY	CanLII	All CanLII library + MCP tools (env-gated on the stdio server / plugin; not set on the hosted demo)	canlii.org/en/feedback/feedback.html (free, by request)

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

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

USPTO TSDR (Trademark Status & Document Retrieval)

Feature	Description
Status lookup	Mark text, filing/registration dates, current status
Prosecution documents	Office actions, responses, registration certificate
Mark images	Drawing JPGs by serial number
Batch status	Check many serial numbers in one call
Last-update timestamp	When the case record was last modified

Requires USPTO_TSDR_API_KEY. Peak hours (5am–10pm ET): 60 req/min general, 4 req/min PDF/ZIP. Off-peak doubles those limits.

USPTO Trademark Assignments

Feature	Description
Search by assignee	Company/person acquiring rights
Search by assignor	Company/person transferring rights
Search by serial / registration	Chain of title for a mark
Search by reel/frame	Direct recordation lookup
Pagination	search_all iterates the full result set

No API key required.

TMEP (Trademark Manual of Examining Procedure)

Feature	Description
Section lookup	Get any TMEP section by number (e.g. 1207.01(a))
Full-text search	Keyword search with relevance ranking
Version listing	Available TMEP editions

No API key required.

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)

JPO MCP tools are env-gated. The local stdio MCP server and the Claude Code plugin register 12 JPO MCP tools (plus the pca://jpo/documents/... resource template) when JPO_API_USERNAME and JPO_API_PASSWORD are set in the server's env. The hosted demo at mcp.patentclient.com does not carry JPO credentials, so JPO tools don't appear there. The Python library's JpoClient works the same way — credentials are read from env on first use.

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                        │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│               patent-client-agents MCP Server                │
│              (Natural language → API calls)                  │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│              patent_client_agents Python library             │
│  ┌─────────┐ ┌─────────┐ ┌─────────┐ ┌─────────┐ ┌────────┐ │
│  │  USPTO  │ │  USPTO  │ │   EPO   │ │ Google  │ │  JPO*  │ │
│  │ patents │ │  marks  │ │   OPS   │ │ Patents │ │        │ │
│  │ ODP+    │ │TSDR+TM  │ │  + CPC  │ │  +MPEP  │ │        │ │
│  │ PPUBS   │ │assigns  │ │         │ │  +TMEP  │ │        │ │
│  └─────────┘ └─────────┘ └─────────┘ └─────────┘ └────────┘ │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
* JPO MCP tools register when JPO_API_USERNAME + JPO_API_PASSWORD are set
  on the server; the hosted demo does not carry these credentials.

Development

git clone https://github.com/parkerhancock/patent-client-agents.git
cd patent-client-agents
uv sync --group dev
uv run pytest                       # 1,056 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