Google Patents
- 2 installs
- skills.volces.com
Google-patents is an agent skill that searches Google Patents via SerpApi for IP research, claims review, and competitive patent analysis.
About
Google-patents is an agent skill that wraps SerpApi access to Google Patents for developers validating ideas, checking freedom-to-operate anxieties, and comparing assignee portfolios before heavy engineering spend. It exposes five shell commands—search, detail, fulltext, full, and pdf—so your agent can move from keyword discovery to claims, description text, and archived PDFs without leaving the terminal. Triggers in the SKILL.md cover patent search, infringement worry, design patents, and portfolio layout in English and Chinese phrasing. You need a SERPAPI_API_KEY environment variable; the skill documents a free allotment of one hundred queries per month. Use it in Idea research and again in Validate when scope decisions hinge on whether a feature overlaps granted claims. It is intermediate complexity because interpreting claims still requires human judgment and often legal counsel for high-stakes products.
- Five bash commands: search, detail, fulltext, full, and pdf download
- Supports multi-country patent IDs including US, CN, EP, JP, KR, WO, and DE
- Search filters for assignee, inventor, status, type, date range, and language
- One-shot full retrieval plus dedicated claims and description fulltext paths
- Requires SERPAPI_API_KEY (documented free tier: 100 searches/month at serpapi.com)
Google Patents by the numbers
- 2 all-time installs (skills.sh)
- Ranked #2,419 of 3,282 Productivity & Planning skills by installs in the Skillselion catalog
- Data as of Jul 7, 2026 (Skillselion catalog sync)
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| Installs | 2 |
|---|---|
| Repository | skills.volces.com ↗ |
What it does
Search patents, pull claims and full text, and download PDFs for IP risk and competitive landscape checks before you commit to a build.
Who is it for?
Best when you're doing preliminary patent landscaping, competitor IP scans, and infringement sanity checks before prototyping.
Skip if: Substituting qualified legal opinion for regulated medical, hardware, or enterprise deals where formal FTO memos are mandatory.
When should I use this skill?
User mentions patents, 专利, infringement, FTO, IP analysis, patent search, claims, assignees, or wants patent PDFs and full descriptions.
What you get
You retrieve structured patent metadata, claims, full descriptions, and PDFs so you can adjust scope, pursue design-around, or escalate to professional FTO review.
- Patent search result sets
- Claims and description extracts
- Downloaded patent PDF files
By the numbers
- 5 documented shell commands (search, detail, fulltext, full, pdf)
- SerpApi free tier noted as 100 requests/month in SKILL.md
Files
Google Patents
Search and retrieve patent data via SerpApi. Requires SERPAPI_API_KEY env var (free: 100/month at serpapi.com).
5 Commands
bash scripts/patents.sh search "keywords" [options] # Search patents
bash scripts/patents.sh detail "US11734097B1" # Basic info + claims
bash scripts/patents.sh fulltext "US11734097B1" # Description full text
bash scripts/patents.sh full "US11734097B1" # ALL data in one call
bash scripts/patents.sh pdf "US11734097B1" output.pdf # Download PDFPatent ID: short US11734097B1 or full patent/US11734097B1/en. Supports all countries: CN, US, EP, JP, KR, WO, DE, etc.
Search Options
--country US,CN,JP,WO,EP,KR --status GRANT|APPLICATION
--type PATENT|DESIGN --assignee "Company"
--inventor "Name" --sort relevance|new|old
--after publication:20230101 --before publication:20251231
--num 10-100 --page N
--language ENGLISH|CHINESE --litigation YES|NO
--scholar --clusteredBoolean: "(massage) AND (glove OR mitt)" | Multi-term + CPC: "(pet grooming);(A01K13)"
What Each Command Returns
search: patent_id, title, snippet, assignee, inventor, dates, pdf, country_status detail: title, abstract, claims[], inventors[], assignees[], classifications[], legal_events[], citations, similar_documents[], images[], pdf, family_id, worldwide_applications fulltext: description full text (FIELD OF INVENTION, BACKGROUND, SUMMARY, DETAILED DESCRIPTION) full: Everything from detail + description_full combined pdf: Downloads PDF file to specified path
E-commerce Scenarios
# Infringement risk check (pre-listing must-do)
bash scripts/patents.sh search "product" --type DESIGN --country US --status GRANT
# Competitor patents
bash scripts/patents.sh search "category" --assignee "Company" --num 50
# Read claims to assess real risk
bash scripts/patents.sh full "USD975937S1"
# Download patent PDF for reference
bash scripts/patents.sh pdf "USD975937S1" ./patent.pdf
# Expired patents (free to use)
bash scripts/patents.sh search "tech" --before "filing:20040101"
# Latest trends
bash scripts/patents.sh search "tech" --sort new --after "publication:20240101"
# Litigation-prone patents
bash scripts/patents.sh search "product" --litigation YES --country USError Handling
All errors return JSON with error and code fields. No exceptions thrown.
| Code | Meaning |
|---|---|
| PATENT_NOT_FOUND | Patent ID doesn't exist (404) |
| AUTH_ERROR | Invalid/expired API key (401/403) |
| MAX_RETRIES_EXCEEDED | Network failure after 3 retries |
| NO_DESCRIPTION | Patent has no description text |
| PARSE_ERROR | HTML parsing failed |
| NO_PDF | No PDF available |
| DOWNLOAD_ERROR | PDF download failed |
| MISSING_QUERY | No search query provided |
| MISSING_ID | No patent ID provided |
Auto-retry: 3 attempts with exponential backoff (2s, 4s, 8s) on 429/5xx errors. Rate limit: 1 second between requests to avoid triggering anti-scraping. Timeouts: 10s connect, 30s max per request, 60s for PDF downloads.
FAQ
Q: Why are some fields empty? A: Different countries have different patent page formats. Some patents may have incomplete data, or the description may not be digitized.
Q: Can I batch-fetch patents? A: Yes, loop through IDs. Respect the 1s rate limit. Free tier = 100 calls/month. Cached results (same query within 1h) are free.
Q: How to get PDF? A: bash scripts/patents.sh pdf "US11734097B1" output.pdf
Q: Chinese vs English patents? A: Chinese pages (patent/CNxxxxxx/zh) have native Chinese content. English pages have machine-translated content. Use --language CHINESE for search.
Q: Patent ID formats? A: Country code + number + type suffix. Examples: CN106484775A, US20180232442A1, EP2264377A2, USD975937S1 (design), JP2020123456A.
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CLI patent research via SerpApi, not general web search or trademark-only clearance workflows.
FAQ
Who is google-patents for?
Developers researching patents, assignees, and claims when evaluating SaaS, hardware-adjacent, or design-heavy ideas.
When should I use google-patents?
Use it in Idea during market and IP discovery, in Validate when narrowing scope around known patents, and before Ship/Launch when a feature’s claims overlap keeps blocking distribution plans.
Is google-patents safe to install?
It calls SerpApi with your API key over the network; store keys safely and review the Security Audits panel on this Prism page before installing in shared repos.