mcp-patent

USPTO patent prior-art search — both an MCP server (Claude/Cursor/Windsurf) and a standalone CLI. Sister product to mcp-trademark.

Why this exists

Patent prior-art search has the same shape as trademark watching: enterprise tools (PatBase, Derwent, Questel) cost $5K-50K/yr. Boutique firms and indie inventors get squeezed.

Same playbook:

• $19/mo per portfolio (managed)
• $149 lifetime self-host bundle
• $499 lifetime Pro (semantic similarity via Qwen, full claims search)

What it does

• Keyword search across title + abstract + claims (USPTO public API)
• Prior-art ranking — score by title overlap (Levenshtein), abstract cosine similarity, and CPC class overlap
• Date filter — only filings before your priority date
• MCP tools — call from Claude/Cursor/Windsurf
• CLI — patentwatch search / patentwatch prior-art --title ...

Pricing tiers

Plan	Price	Features
Lifetime self-host	$149	Full source, MCP server, CLI
Lifetime Pro	$499	+ Qwen semantic similarity, claims-text search
Managed	$19/mo per portfolio	We host, daily watch, email digest

Run locally

cd C:\openclaw-products\mcp-patent
python -m venv .venv
.\.venv\Scripts\activate
pip install -e ".[dev]"

patentwatch search "battery thermal management"
patentwatch prior-art --title "Battery cooling system" \
                       --abstract "Liquid-cooled..." \
                       --classes "H01M,F28D" \
                       --before "2026-01-01"

MCP usage (Claude Desktop)

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "patent": {
      "command": "python",
      "args": ["-m", "src.server"],
      "cwd": "C:\\openclaw-products\\mcp-patent"
    }
  }
}

Roadmap

• Bulk-feed integration for completeness
• Qwen semantic-similarity scoring (paid Pro tier feature)
• Claims-text full search
• EPO + WIPO global patent
• Image-based prior art (CAD diagram embeddings)