🇨🇭 Part of the Swiss Public Data MCP Portfolio

💡 swiss-ip-mcp

MCP Server for Swiss Intellectual Property Data (IGE/IPI)

🇩🇪 Deutsche Version → README.de.md

Overview

swiss-ip-mcp is a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that gives AI models structured, language-driven access to the Swiss intellectual property register Swissreg, operated by the Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property (IGE/IPI).

It is the successor to patent-mcp and covers all available domains of the Swissreg Datadelivery API: trademarks, patents, patent publications, and supplementary protection certificates (SPC/ESZ).

This server is model-agnostic. It works with Claude, GPT-4, Llama, and any other MCP-compatible client – not just Claude Desktop.

Example Queries

The real power is natural language. Instead of manually searching the register, just ask a question:

"Which trademarks does the City of Zurich hold at the IGE?"

"Is the name 'Learning City Zurich' registered as a trademark in Switzerland?"

"Which pharmaceutical companies have filed Swiss patents in the last six months?"

"Show me all trademark applications in the education sector (Nice class 41) since January 2025."

"What supplementary protection certificates does Novartis hold in Switzerland?"

Covered Domains

Note: Design search is not yet available in the Swissreg Datadelivery API.

Tools (11)

Resources & Prompts

Beyond tools, the server exposes two more MCP primitives:

Resources (read-only metadata, swissip:// URI scheme):

Prompts (curated workflow templates):

Error semantics

Tool execution errors (API failures, timeouts, missing credentials) are returned with MCP isError: true and a masked, user-friendly message — internal details (stack traces, raw API bodies) go only to the server log. A specific number lookup that finds nothing is not an error: it returns a normal result with match_type: "none" and a message.

Project Phase

This server is in Phase 1 (read-only) of the MCP phased-rollout model: every tool is read-only and writes nothing. See ROADMAP.md for the phase plan and the prerequisites for any future write-capable phase.

Architecture

AI client (Claude Desktop, Cursor, VS Code + Continue, …)
         │
         │  MCP (stdio or SSE)
         ▼
   swiss-ip-mcp
         │
         │  HTTPS + OAuth2 (IGE IDP)
         ▼
  Swissreg Datadelivery API
  https://www.swissreg.ch/public/api/v1
         │
         ├── TrademarkSearch
         ├── PatentSearch
         ├── PatentPublicationSearch
         ├── SPCSearch
         └── UserQuota

Transport Modes

Transport is selected at startup from the MCP_TRANSPORT environment variable (default stdio). The HTTP transports are served by uvicorn and honour:

The Mcp-Session-Id header is exposed via CORS so browser-based clients can read and echo it on follow-up requests.

Prerequisites

1. IGE credentials (free): Sign the terms of use and send the form by post to the IGE. Credentials are issued upon receipt.
2. Python 3.11 or later
3. uv (recommended) or pip

Installation

# Run directly with uv (recommended, no local installation needed)
uvx swiss-ip-mcp

# Local development installation
git clone https://github.com/malkreide/swiss-ip-mcp
cd swiss-ip-mcp
pip install -e ".[dev]"

Configuration

Environment Variables

export IGE_USERNAME="your_username"
export IGE_PASSWORD="your_password"

Claude Desktop

Open the config file:

• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
• Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "swiss-ip": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["swiss-ip-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "IGE_USERNAME": "your_username",
        "IGE_PASSWORD": "your_password"
      }
    }
  }
}

Other MCP Clients

swiss-ip-mcp is compatible with any MCP-capable client:

Cloud / Render.com (Streamable HTTP)

MCP_TRANSPORT=streamable-http \
  MCP_HOST=0.0.0.0 PORT=8000 \
  MCP_ALLOWED_ORIGINS="https://your-client.example" \
  MCP_ALLOWED_HOSTS="your-app.onrender.com" \
  IGE_USERNAME=... IGE_PASSWORD=... \
  swiss-ip-mcp

Security note: bind to 0.0.0.0 only inside a container or behind a reverse proxy. Always set MCP_ALLOWED_ORIGINS and MCP_ALLOWED_HOSTS for public deployments — this enables CORS scoping and DNS-rebinding protection. The endpoint is unauthenticated and serves only public IP-register data; do not place credentialed or non-public tools behind this transport without adding authentication first.

Docker / Kubernetes

A hardened multi-stage Dockerfile (non-root UID 10001, HEALTHCHECK on /health), a docker-compose.yml with resource limits, and Kubernetes manifests + an HAProxy sticky-session config under deploy/ are included.

docker compose up --build   # reads IGE_* from .env

See docs/deployment.md for hardening, resource limits and scaling (stateless vs. sticky-session) details.

Tests

# Unit tests (no credentials needed)
PYTHONPATH=src pytest tests/ -v

# Including live integration tests against the real API
IGE_USERNAME=... IGE_PASSWORD=... PYTHONPATH=src pytest tests/ -v

The CI workflow runs on Python 3.11, 3.12, and 3.13.

Observability (optional)

The server can emit OpenTelemetry traces — one span per tool call plus child spans for the backend Swissreg/IDP HTTP calls. Tracing is off by default and adds no overhead until enabled.

pip install 'swiss-ip-mcp[otel]'

MCP_OTEL_ENABLED=1 \
  OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT=http://your-collector:4318 \
  MCP_ENV=production \
  swiss-ip-mcp