Patent & Literature Search MCP

Search global patents and scientific literature in natural language, directly inside Claude, Cursor, or any MCP-compatible AI tool. The MCP supports semantic, keyword, BM25, and structured search, then retrieves selected records as AI-readable Markdown.

Start free: Register on Patsnap Open Platform to receive 10,000 free credits. No credit card is required.

About Patsnap

Patsnap is a global innovation intelligence platform covering patents, scientific literature, chemistry, life sciences, and other 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. A single natural-language research request can cover both corpora and combine the results for AI reasoning.

• 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
• Cross-domain research — 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

Data Coverage

This MCP is backed by Patsnap's global patent and scientific-literature coverage.

Patent coverage

Patent data coverage includes:

Coverage is refreshed frequently, with patent data updated daily.

Scientific-literature coverage

Literature records include bibliographic metadata, abstracts, citation metadata, and PDF coverage. The collection spans journal articles, preprints, conference proceedings, repositories, datasets, and other non-patent literature.

See Patsnap Global Data Coverage for the current authority-level and publication-level coverage matrix.

What You Can Search

patsnap_search searches either patents or scientific literature in one call. Its current input supports:

Patent filters may include assignees, inventors, IPC classifications, jurisdictions, filing or publication dates, legal status, and citation conditions. Exact filter names and operators depend on the current hosted tool schema.

What You Can Retrieve

patsnap_fetch retrieves up to 100 selected result URLs or patent publication numbers as Markdown.

Patent modules

Citation data

The citation module can retrieve citation data for selected patents. Where available, this may include:

• patents cited by the selected patent;
• patents citing the selected patent;
• applicant, examiner, or search-authority citations;
• citation categories such as X, Y, and A;
• cited non-patent literature; and
• DOI and other bibliographic metadata for cited literature.

Citation direction and type should be determined from the returned record labels. Availability and completeness vary by jurisdiction and patent.

Literature records

Literature records support the basic module and may include title, abstract metadata, authors, affiliations, publication, publication date, DOI, and other available bibliographic identifiers.

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. A single research request may invoke patent and literature searches and combine their results.
• 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