Patent Literature Search

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Search 200M+ patents and scientific literature in natural language, directly inside Claude, Cursor, or any MCP-compatible AI tool. Powered by Patsnap's proprietary R&D intelligence database.

About Patsnap

Patsnap is a global innovation intelligence platform covering 200M+ patents across 170+ jurisdictions (USPTO, EPO, WIPO and more), 216M+ scientific papers, and R&D data.

To explore Patsnap data interactively, try Eureka, Patsnap's AI-native R&D assistant. To access data programmatically, use the MCP servers or REST API via Patsnap Open Platform.

What It Does

Patent & Literature Search MCP gives your AI agent direct access to Patsnap's patent and academic literature databases — searchable together in a single query, in natural language, without switching tools or learning Boolean syntax.

• Patent search — keyword, assignee, inventor, IPC class, legal status, date range, and citation filters
• Literature search — semantic and keyword search across peer-reviewed scientific papers
• Fusion search — orchestrate patent and paper searches using the same tool and combine the structured results for AI reasoning
• Natural language input — describe your problem or topic in plain English or Chinese; the MCP constructs the search strategy
• Precision filtering — filter by assignee, inventor, legal status, jurisdiction, date range, and citation count simultaneously

Quick Start

1. Get your API key

Register at Patsnap Open Platform and generate a free API key from the Patent & Literature Search MCP page. New accounts include 10,000 free credits. No credit card required.

2. Add to Claude Code

claude mcp add --transport http search-tool \
  "https://connect.patsnap.com/2b0355/logic-mcp?apikey=YOUR_API_KEY"

Restart Claude Code and type /mcp to confirm it loaded.

3. Add to Cursor or Windsurf

Add the following to your MCP configuration file:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "patsnap_patent_literature": {
      "url": "https://connect.patsnap.com/2b0355/logic-mcp?apikey=YOUR_API_KEY",
      "type": "streamableHttp"
    }
  }
}

Replace YOUR_API_KEY with your key from Patsnap Open Platform.

Run the Containerized MCP Bridge

The repository includes a local stdio bridge for environments that install or deploy MCP servers from source. It exposes static tool definitions without credentials and forwards tool calls to the hosted Patsnap Streamable HTTP service when PATSNAP_API_KEY is configured.

Docker

docker build -t patsnap-patent-literature-search .
docker run --rm -i \
  -e PATSNAP_API_KEY=YOUR_API_KEY \
  patsnap-patent-literature-search

MCP client configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "patsnap_patent_literature": {
      "command": "docker",
      "args": [
        "run",
        "--rm",
        "-i",
        "-e",
        "PATSNAP_API_KEY",
        "ghcr.io/patsnap/patent-literature-search-mcp:latest"
      ],
      "env": {
        "PATSNAP_API_KEY": "YOUR_API_KEY"
      }
    }
  }
}

The GitHub Actions workflow publishes version tags such as v1.1.0 to GHCR as both 1.1.0 and latest.

An optional live upstream check can be run manually from GitHub Actions. Add PATSNAP_TEST_API_KEY as a repository Actions secret, start the workflow with Run workflow, and enable run_upstream. Pull requests never receive or use this secret.

Tools

• patsnap_search — Search either patents or scientific literature in a request. Supports natural-language and semantic queries, precise keyword and BM25-based text search, and filters such as assignee, inventor, IPC classification, legal status, jurisdiction, date range, and citations. Call it once per source when both corpora are required.
• patsnap_fetch — Retrieve a patent or literature record as Markdown using one or more result URLs. Patent records can also be fetched by publication number and may include bibliographic data, claims, descriptions, drawings, citations, legal data, and patent-family data. Literature records include core bibliographic and abstract metadata.

Development

Requires Node.js 20 or newer.

npm ci
npm test
npm start

The test suite verifies:

• static tool discovery without an API key;
• argument validation and upstream forwarding;
• structured MCP error handling;
• a real stdio initialize and tools/list handshake.

To verify the container locally:

docker build -t patent-literature-search-mcp:test .
npm run test:docker

The server writes MCP JSON-RPC only to stdout. Application errors are returned as MCP tool results, and credentials are never included in logs.

Glama Release

After claiming the server on Glama:

1. Open the server's Dockerfile Admin page.
2. Select the repository-root Dockerfile.
3. Add PATSNAP_API_KEY as a secret deployment environment variable.
4. Use node src/index.js as the command if Glama does not infer the Dockerfile CMD.
5. Run Deploy, verify the MCP build test, and create a release.

Example Prompts

What is Tesla actually working on in battery technology — show me
their recent patent filings, group by technology area, and identify
who is leading each.

Which GLP-1 receptor agonist patents are expiring before 2028,
and what does recent literature say about next-generation mechanisms?

My EV battery loses 40% range in cold weather. What technical
solutions exist in patents and academic papers?

Resources

• Patsnap
• Patsnap Open Platform
• Patent & Literature Search MCP
• Eureka
• All Patsnap MCP Servers

License

Apache-2.0

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