USPTO Patent MCP Server

The USPTO Patent MCP Server is a lightweight, FastMCP‑based gateway that exposes the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s rich patent data set to AI assistants such as Claude Desktop. By abstracting the complexities of the Patent Public Search API and the Open Data Portal (ODP) API, it lets developers query, retrieve, and consume patent information without having to manage authentication, pagination, or data formatting themselves. This capability is especially valuable for teams building knowledge‑base applications, legal analytics tools, or R&D dashboards that need up‑to‑date patent insights.

At its core, the server offers four primary tool families. First, Patent Search enables natural‑language or keyword queries against the USPTO’s indexed patent corpus, returning concise summaries and identifiers. Second, Full Text Documents fetches the complete textual content of patents—including claims, descriptions, and abstract—so an AI assistant can read or analyze the technical details directly. Third, PDF Downloads provides binary PDF files for offline review, though this feature is currently not exposed to Claude Desktop clients. Finally, Metadata pulls bibliographic details, assignment histories, and litigation data from the ODP API, giving users a comprehensive view of each patent’s legal status.

The server bridges two distinct USPTO endpoints: ppubs.uspto.gov powers full‑text access and advanced search, while api.uspto.gov supplies structured metadata and continuity information. Developers can therefore combine the strengths of both APIs in a single conversational flow, such as searching for all patents that cite a particular technology and then pulling the full text of the most relevant results. Because the MCP server handles rate‑limiting and API key management internally, it frees developers from worrying about quota exhaustion or credential rotation.

Integrating the USPTO Patent MCP Server into an AI workflow is straightforward. Once the server is running, a Claude Desktop client can invoke any of its tools via standard MCP calls. For example, an assistant could answer a user’s query about “machine learning patents filed in 2023” by first searching the database, then fetching the full text of the top hits, and finally summarizing key claims. The server’s design aligns with the MCP philosophy of treating external data sources as first‑class resources, enabling developers to compose complex queries and pipelines without writing custom API wrappers.

Unique advantages of this MCP server include its dual‑API architecture, which ensures both breadth (metadata) and depth (full text), and the use of FastMCP, which guarantees low‑latency communication over standard I/O. For teams that rely on Claude Desktop or similar models, the USPTO Patent MCP Server turns a traditionally cumbersome data source into an interactive, AI‑friendly resource—streamlining patent research, competitive intelligence, and intellectual property risk assessment.