Patent by Ouroboros Apps

What Patent by Ouroboros Apps MCP server does

Patent by Ouroboros Apps MCP server gives MCP-compatible assistants access to United States patent data from the USPTO Open Data Portal. It is intended for inventors, startup founders, patent agents, attorneys, and engineers checking whether an idea or claim language appears in the public patent record.

The service is a research aid only. Its results are not opinions about patentability, infringement, validity, or freedom to operate, and the project does not replace advice from a registered patent attorney or agent. Google Patents is used for links in prior-art results; patent numbers in tool responses come from USPTO responses.

How it works

The hosted endpoint is https://patent-mcp.vercel.app/mcp and uses Streamable HTTP. Clients authenticate through OAuth sign-in, with OAuth 2.1 dynamic client registration and PKCE using the S256 method. Client configuration does not require entering an ID or secret. A health endpoint is available at /health, and protected-resource metadata is published under /.well-known/oauth-protected-resource.

Patent by Ouroboros Apps MCP server searches USPTO records rather than a general international patent corpus. Search access on the hosted service includes a 14-day account trial; continued Pro access is handled through Stripe Checkout after the trial. The repository does not state the subscription amount.

Tools and capabilities

• search_patents accepts keywords, claim language, CPC classification, assignee, inventor, and date filters.
• get_patent returns information for one record, including its abstract, claims, status, family, and citations.
• find_patent_citations finds documents citing a selected patent and documents cited by that patent.
• search_prior_art accepts an idea description and returns nearby USPTO records with Google Patents links.

Citation coverage comes from USPTO grant documents and USPTO office-action citations. The README notes that the PatentsView citation graph is currently paused because its PatentSearch API moved to the Open Data Portal.

Setup and configuration

For hosted use, add the MCP URL to a compatible Streamable HTTP client and select OAuth when prompted. Cursor can use a url entry in ~/.cursor/mcp.json or a project-level .cursor/mcp.json. Claude Code can be configured with claude mcp add --transport http patent https://patent-mcp.vercel.app/mcp. The connection guide also describes setup for ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Grok.

For local use, install dependencies, copy .env.example to .env, and run npm run dev. The local service listens on port 8787 and exposes its MCP endpoint at http://127.0.0.1:8787/mcp. Tests and type checking are available through npm test and npm run typecheck.

A self-hosted deployment needs an origin, session secret, and USPTO Open Data Portal key for production operation. Account, OAuth, and token data can use memory, file, HTTP, or Vercel Blob storage. Stripe variables are needed only when configuring billing. Secrets should not be committed.

Limitations and notes

Patent by Ouroboros Apps MCP server covers United States patents from the USPTO Open Data Portal on the hosted service. An old PatentsView API key does not work with that portal; users requesting their own key must create a USPTO.gov account, verify ID.me, and request access through the portal.

The default memory storage does not survive a process restart or a second serverless instance. File storage suits Docker or a long-running Node process, while HTTP storage expects an existing service and does not create a database. Vercel deployments use Blob storage according to the documented setup.

The hosted server requires OAuth authentication for tool calls, even though tools/list responds without a token. No live Stripe charge was made during the documented tests.