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Patent Lookup MCP Server

Look up patents BY NUMBER — get full details and citation chains for AI agents.

View on Apify | MCP Endpoint

What It Does

Give AI agents the ability to look up specific patents by number, retrieve full metadata and claims, and trace citation chains.

• Patent lookup by number — get full details for a specific patent
• Claims and metadata — abstracts, inventors, assignees, filing dates
• Citation tracking — forward and backward citation chains
• Google Patents — aggregated patent data with citations

Comparison

• COMPARISON.md

Known Limitations

Keyword search is currently unavailable. The USPTO, EPO, and Google Patents search APIs are returning errors (404/503/403). To use this MCP, you must already know the patent number you want to look up.

Working features:

• get_patent_details — look up a specific patent by number
• find_patent_citations — trace citation chains for a known patent

Non-operational:

• search_patents — keyword search unavailable (APIs down)
• patent_landscape_by_company — company search unavailable (APIs down)

Quick Start

Add to your AI agent:

{
"mcpServers":{
"patent-search-mcp":{
"url":"https://patent-search-mcp.apify.actor/mcp"
}
}
}

Or with authentication:

{
"mcpServers":{
"patent-search-mcp":{
"url":"https://patent-search-mcp.apify.actor/mcp?token=YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN"
}
}
}

Tool parameters

get_patent_details

When to call: Persona: IP lawyer or due diligence analyst. Scenario: Getting full metadata, claims, and assignee information for a specific patent being evaluated in a transaction.

Example AI prompt: "Get full details for patent US10712345 including the abstract, claims, and assignee information."

find_patent_citations

When to call: Persona: Patent strategist or innovation analyst. Scenario: Tracing citation chains to understand a patent's influence or find potentially infringing downstream patents.

Example AI prompt: "Find all forward citations for the original transformer patent US10967890 — show who has cited this patent."

search_patents

UNAVAILABLE — Keyword search is currently broken (USPTO/EPO/Google APIs returning errors).

When to call: Only when keyword search is restored. For now, use get_patent_details with a known patent number.

Example AI prompt: "Search for patents related to neural network attention mechanisms filed between 2020-2025, show 20 results."

patent_landscape_by_company

UNAVAILABLE — Company search is currently broken (APIs returning errors).

When to call: Only when company search is restored.

Connection examples

cURL

curl-X POST "https://patent-search-mcp.apify.actor/mcp"\
-H"Authorization: Bearer YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN"\
-H"Content-Type: application/json"\
-d'{"tool": "get_patent_details", "params": {"patent_number": "US10123456"}}'

Node.js

const response =awaitfetch('https://patent-search-mcp.apify.actor/mcp',{
method:'POST',
headers:{
'Authorization':'Bearer YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN',
'Content-Type':'application/json'
},
body:JSON.stringify({
tool:'get_patent_details',
params:{patent_number:'US10123456'}
})
});
const data =await response.json();
console.log(data.result.title);

How It Works

Phase 1: Patent Lookup

• Accepts a specific patent number (e.g., US10123456)
• Fetches data from Google Patents HTML pages

Phase 2: Citation Tracing

• Parses the /cite page for forward and backward citations
• Returns structured citation chains

Phase 3: Aggregation

• Returns structured JSON with source attribution
• Includes direct URLs to patent records

Data Sources

Use Cases

Due Diligence

"What's in patent US10712345 — abstract, claims, assignee?" → AI calls get_patent_details with patent number → Returns full metadata

Citation Analysis

"Who has cited the original transformer patent US10967890?" → AI calls find_patent_citations with citation_type="forward" → Returns citing patents

Prior Art Research (when search is restored)

"Find patents from MIT researchers in the AI space" → AI would call search_patents with MIT inventor query → Returns MIT patent portfolio

Company Landscape (when search is restored)

"What's Apple's patent strategy in electric vehicles?" → AI would call patent_landscape_by_company → Returns filing trends, top patents

Pricing

No subscription required. Pay per use via Apify PPE.

Cross-Sell Triggers

This MCP complements the research intelligence cluster:

• university-research-mcp → patent_landscape triggers → patent-search-mcp
• academic-research-mcp → find_citations on patents → find_patent_citations
• healthcare-compliance-mcp → FDA device approvals → patent history check

Connect to AI Agents

Claude Desktop

{
"mcpServers":{
"patent-search-mcp":{
"url":"https://patent-search-mcp.apify.actor/mcp"
}
}
}

Cursor / Windsurf

Add the same JSON to your AI client config.

cURL Example

curl-X POST "https://patent-search-mcp.apify.actor/mcp"\
-H"Content-Type: application/json"\
-d'{"tool": "get_patent_details", "params": {"patent_number": "US10123456"}}'

Output Schema

All tools return JSON. Each result includes:

• patent_number — unique identifier
• title — patent title
• source — which database
• url — direct link to record

SEO Keywords

Patent lookup by number, USPTO patent lookup, EPO patent lookup, Google Patents lookup, patent details API, patent citations API, patent claims lookup, AI agent patent tools, MCP server, IP intelligence for AI agents, patent due diligence automation, Google Patents alternative, USPTO patent comparison.

API Status

• Health: Running
• Lookup by number: Working
• Keyword search: Unavailable (USPTO/EPO/Google APIs returning errors)
• Company search: Unavailable (APIs returning errors)
• Rate Limits: Respect upstream API limits
• Support: Open issue on GitHub