Patent Connector CLI

Install the Patent CLI

The patent CLI gives you patent & trademark tools (EPO, USPTO, DPMA, EUIPO, IP Australia, JPO, TIPO and more) from your terminal. Install takes about ten seconds; you then activate a free license once and you're ready.

It runs three ways:

• As a client of the hosted Patent Connector at https://patent.dev/mcp - zero setup, recommended. The CLI is just the client, running on the shared server patent.dev provides for free.
• In-process with your own provider keys - no server at all (--local). Best for a single machine, one user.
• Fully self-hosted - run patent itself as your own Patent Connector server and point CLIs at it. For a company / multi-user intranet, with provider credentials stored centrally instead of on every machine. Needs a self-host license (see Self-host).

Requirements: macOS or Linux (Windows: see below). The installer downloads a single self-contained binary - no runtime, no dependencies.

Quick install (macOS & Linux)

curl -fsSL https://get.patent.dev/install.sh | sh

This detects your OS and CPU architecture, downloads the matching build from get.patent.dev, verifies its SHA-256 checksum, and installs patent to /usr/local/bin (it will prompt for sudo only if that directory isn't writable).

Check it worked:

patent --help

Homebrew (macOS & Linux)

Prefer a package manager? Install from the tap:

brew tap patent-dev/tap
brew install patent

Upgrade later with brew upgrade patent.

Activate your free license

Running any tool requires a license - the hosted free tier covers normal use. Get one once:

patent register --email you@firm.com    # the license server emails you an activation code
patent activate <code>                  # redeem the code; the license is cached and auto-renews

That's it - the CLI renews the license automatically from then on.

License vs. token - the two things you provide

The CLI uses two separate credentials; knowing which is which avoids confusion:

• License (what you just activated) - your binary's entitlement. Always required. The free tier covers normal use of the hosted service; running your own server needs more (see Self-host below).
• Token (next step) - signs you in to a server. You need one only when you talk to a server - the hosted https://patent.dev/mcp, or your own. Each server issues its own tokens.

Running tools in-process with --local (your own provider keys) needs the license only - no token.

So: hosted use = license (free) + a patent.dev token. In-process = license + your provider keys. Self-host a server = a self-host license + your team's tokens on that server.

Sign in and run your first search

The hosted server at https://patent.dev/mcp is the default, so there's nothing to configure - just sign in and search:

patent login                              # paste your Access Code (https://patent.dev/mcp -> Connect Your Chatbot)
patent search-patents --query "electric vehicle battery" --limit 5

Output is JSON by default; add -o table or -o yaml for other formats. Run patent <command> --help for any command's flags, and patent get-search-syntax --provider <id> to see a provider's query grammar (it differs per office).

Reference data (examination manuals and classification schemes - reference_search, list_manuals, get_manual_section, classification_tree, classification_catchword) works out of the box on the hosted server. Running it yourself - in-process with --local, or on a self-hosted server - needs a paid license; reference is bundled into the self-host / full-access license. Get in touch at info@patent.dev.

Prefer no server? Run every tool in-process with your own provider keys: set them as environment variables, e.g.
export PATENT_EPO_OPS_CONSUMER_KEY=… PATENT_EPO_OPS_CONSUMER_SECRET=…, then add --local to any tool.

Self-host a server (for a team)

Run your own Patent Connector server so a whole team shares one endpoint, with provider credentials stored centrally (BYOK) instead of on every machine.

Self-hosting needs a license that includes it - the free tier covers using the hosted service, not running your own server. Get in touch at info@patent.dev to enable self-hosting on your license.

Once licensed, start the server (it's configured entirely by environment variables) and point your team's CLIs at it:

# on the server host:
BASE_URL=https://patents.acme.com ENCRYPTION_KEY=$(openssl rand -hex 16) patent server

# each teammate:
patent config set-server https://patents.acme.com
patent login                              # paste a token from your server's dashboard

Run patent server --help for the full list of settings (database, port, provider credentials).

Windows

Scoop

scoop bucket add patent-dev https://github.com/patent-dev/scoop-bucket
scoop install patent

Update later with scoop update patent.

Or download directly

Grab the Windows archive from get.patent.dev:

patent_<version>_windows_amd64.zip      (or _arm64.zip)

Unzip it and put patent.exe somewhere on your PATH. The latest version number is always at https://get.patent.dev/latest.txt.

Options

The installer reads a few environment variables:

Example - install a pinned version into your home directory without sudo:

curl -fsSL https://get.patent.dev/install.sh | PATENT_BIN_DIR="$HOME/.local/bin" PATENT_VERSION=1.6.0-beta.6 sh

Verify the download (optional)

The installer already verifies the SHA-256 checksum on every install. If you also want to verify the release signature out of band, each release publishes a cosign signature of checksums.txt:

curl -fsSLO https://get.patent.dev/checksums.txt
curl -fsSLO https://get.patent.dev/checksums.txt.sig
curl -fsSLO https://get.patent.dev/cosign.pub
cosign verify-blob \
  --key cosign.pub \
  --signature checksums.txt.sig \
  --insecure-ignore-tlog=true \
  checksums.txt

Upgrade

Use whichever channel you installed with:

# curl install:
curl -fsSL https://get.patent.dev/install.sh | sh
# Homebrew:
brew upgrade patent
# Scoop:
scoop update patent

Uninstall

# curl install:
sudo rm /usr/local/bin/patent
# Homebrew:
brew uninstall patent && brew untap patent-dev/tap
# Scoop:
scoop uninstall patent && scoop bucket rm patent-dev

Then remove the cached license and tokens:

rm -rf ~/.patent                                   # cached license key
rm -rf "$HOME/Library/Application Support/patent"  # macOS: cached license + tokens

Troubleshooting

• command not found: patent - your install directory isn't on PATH. Add it (e.g. export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH") or reinstall with the default PATENT_BIN_DIR.
• checksum mismatch - a corrupted or interrupted download. Re-run the installer.
• provider … is not configured - that tool needs provider credentials; see the provider setup docs.