USPTO Patent MCP Server

What does “USPTO Patent” MCP Server do?

The USPTO Patent MCP Server is a FastMCP server that enables AI assistants and clients to access United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) patent and patent application data. It acts as a bridge between AI-powered development environments and external patent data sources, such as the USPTO’s Public Search and Open Data Portal APIs. Through this server, developers and AI models can perform tasks like searching for patents, retrieving full-text documents, accessing bibliographic metadata, and downloading patent PDFs. By integrating with tools like Claude Desktop, the server streamlines workflows involving patent research, intellectual property analysis, and legal tech applications, allowing for automated, context-aware interactions with comprehensive patent databases.

List of Prompts

No information about prompt templates is available in the repository.

List of Resources

No explicit resource primitives are documented in the repository or README.

List of Tools

• Patent Search: Allows searching for patents and patent applications using the USPTO APIs.
• Full Text Documents: Retrieves the complete text of patents, including claims and descriptions.
• PDF Downloads: Enables downloading of patents as PDF files (although some clients may not support this).
• Metadata: Provides access to patent bibliographic information, assignments, and litigation data.

Use Cases of this MCP Server

• Patent Research and Analysis: Developers and legal professionals can search for and analyze patents directly within AI-powered environments, streamlining research workflows.
• Intellectual Property Monitoring: Automate the tracking of new patent filings, assignments, or litigation involving specific companies or technologies.
• Legal Tech Tools: Enable AI agents to fetch and summarize patent documents, claims, and legal events for law firms or IP consultancies.
• Data Integration for Product Development: Integrate patent search and retrieval into product design or R&D workflows, ensuring teams are aware of existing patents.
• Academic and Market Analysis: Support academic projects or market research by enabling large-scale queries and analysis of patent databases.

How to set it up

Windsurf

1. Ensure you have Node.js and Windsurf installed.
2. Clone the repository and install dependencies:

   git clone https://github.com/riemannzeta/patent_mcp_server
   cd patent_mcp_server
   uv sync
   

3. Edit your Windsurf configuration file to add the USPTO Patent MCP server:

   "mcpServers": {
     "uspto-patent-mcp": {
       "command": "uv",
       "args": ["run", "patent-mcp-server"]
     }
   }
   

4. Save your configuration and restart Windsurf.
5. Verify the server is running and accessible through Windsurf.

Securing API Keys

"env": {
  "USPTO_ODP_API_KEY": "your_api_key_here"
},
"inputs": {}

Claude

1. Install Claude Desktop.
2. Follow setup steps to clone and install the server as above.
3. In Claude’s settings, add the server configuration:

   "mcpServers": {
     "uspto-patent-mcp": {
       "command": "uv",
       "args": ["run", "patent-mcp-server"]
     }
   }
   

4. Restart Claude Desktop.
5. Confirm that Claude can access the MCP tools.

Securing API Keys

"env": {
  "USPTO_ODP_API_KEY": "your_api_key_here"
},
"inputs": {}

Cursor

1. Ensure you have Cursor and Node.js installed.
2. Clone and set up the server:

   git clone https://github.com/riemannzeta/patent_mcp_server
   cd patent_mcp_server
   uv sync
   

3. Add the server to Cursor’s settings:

   "mcpServers": {
     "uspto-patent-mcp": {
       "command": "uv",
       "args": ["run", "patent-mcp-server"]
     }
   }
   

4. Save and restart Cursor.

Securing API Keys

"env": {
  "USPTO_ODP_API_KEY": "your_api_key_here"
},
"inputs": {}

Cline

1. Install Cline and prerequisites.
2. Clone the server repository and install dependencies.
3. Update Cline’s configuration:

   "mcpServers": {
     "uspto-patent-mcp": {
       "command": "uv",
       "args": ["run", "patent-mcp-server"]
     }
   }
   

4. Save your configuration and restart Cline.

Securing API Keys

"env": {
  "USPTO_ODP_API_KEY": "your_api_key_here"
},
"inputs": {}

How to use this MCP inside flows

Using MCP in FlowHunt

To integrate MCP servers into your FlowHunt workflow, start by adding the MCP component to your flow and connecting it to your AI agent:

Click on the MCP component to open the configuration panel. In the system MCP configuration section, insert your MCP server details using this JSON format:

{
  "uspto-patent-mcp": {
    "transport": "streamable_http",
    "url": "https://yourmcpserver.example/pathtothemcp/url"
  }
}

Once configured, the AI agent is now able to use this MCP as a tool with access to all its functions and capabilities. Remember to change “uspto-patent-mcp” to whatever the actual name of your MCP server is and replace the URL with your own MCP server URL.

Overview

Based on the available documentation and features, the USPTO Patent MCP Server is a focused, practical MCP implementation with strong real-world utility for legal and patent data workflows. However, it lacks explicit MCP prompt/resource primitives and sampling support, limiting its flexibility for broader AI workflow integration.

MCP Score

My rating for this MCP server, based on the above tables, is 6/10.
It is highly functional for its purpose, licensed openly, and has clear tool support, but is missing more advanced MCP features and broader documentation on prompts/resources.