`search_inventors`

Pack: patents · Endpoint: https://gateway.pipeworx.io/patents/mcp

No MCP client? Call it directly: GET https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/search_inventors for the schema, then POST the same URL with its arguments for the data.

Search USPTO patent applications by inventor last name. Returns matching applications with title, inventor list, and filing date — sorted newest-filed-first, so this is the APPLICATION corpus (same as search_patents with no granted_after), and the newest rows will be unexamined filings with no grant date by construction (USPTO publishes ~18 months after filing). That is expected, not stale data. For a specific inventor’s ISSUED patents, use search_patents with inventor + granted_after instead.

Parameters

Name	Type	Required	Description
`query`	string	yes	Inventor last name to search for (case-insensitive). Examples: “Hinton”, “Bengio”.
`limit`	number	no	Number of results to return (default 10). USPTO caps every search at 25 records, so values above 25 have no effect — use the filters to narrow instead.
`_apiKey`	string	no	USPTO ODP API key. Get free at https://data.uspto.gov/myodp.

Example call

Arguments

{
  "query": "Smith"
}

curl

curl -X POST https://gateway.pipeworx.io/patents/mcp \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"tools/call","params":{"name":"search_inventors","arguments":{"query":"Smith"}}}'

TypeScript (@pipeworx/sdk)

import { Pipeworx } from '@pipeworx/sdk';
const pipeworx = new Pipeworx();

const result = await pipeworx.call('search_inventors', {
  "query": "Smith"
});

More examples

{
  "query": "Johnson"
}

Response shape

Always returns: query, total_results, returned, inventors

Field	Type	Description
`query`	string	The search query used
`total_results`	number	Total number of matching inventors
`returned`	number	Number of inventors in this response
`inventors`	array	List of inventor details

Full JSON Schema

{
  "type": "object",
  "properties": {
    "query": {
      "type": "string",
      "description": "The search query used"
    },
    "total_results": {
      "type": "number",
      "description": "Total number of matching inventors"
    },
    "returned": {
      "type": "number",
      "description": "Number of inventors in this response"
    },
    "inventors": {
      "type": "array",
      "description": "List of inventor details",
      "items": {
        "type": "object",
        "properties": {
          "first_name": {
            "type": [
              "string",
              "null"
            ],
            "description": "Inventor first name or null"
          },
          "last_name": {
            "type": [
              "string",
              "null"
            ],
            "description": "Inventor last name or null"
          },
          "city": {
            "type": [
              "string",
              "null"
            ],
            "description": "Inventor city or null"
          },
          "state": {
            "type": [
              "string",
              "null"
            ],
            "description": "Inventor state or null"
          },
          "patent_numbers": {
            "type": "array",
            "description": "Patent numbers associated with inventor",
            "items": {
              "type": "string"
            }
          }
        }
      }
    }
  },
  "required": [
    "query",
    "total_results",
    "returned",
    "inventors"
  ]
}

Connect

Add this to your MCP client config, or use one-click install buttons:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "patents": {
      "url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/patents/mcp"
    }
  }
}

See Getting Started for client-specific install steps.

search_inventors