Patent Search API for AI Agents: Full-Text Semantic Search Across the USPTO

The first patent search API built for AI agents. Search 12M+ USPTO patents in natural language—full-text coverage of claims, specifications, and abstracts. One API call.

Example with Vercel AI SDK:

1import { generateText, stepCountIs } from 'ai';
2import { patentSearch } from '@valyu/ai-sdk';
3import { openai } from '@ai-sdk/openai';
4
5const { text } = await generateText({
6  model: openai('gpt-5'),
7  prompt: 'Prior art for transformer-based protein folding prediction',
8  tools: {
9    patentSearch: patentSearch(),
10  },
11  stopWhen: stepCountIs(5),
12});

That's it. Your agent now searches 12+ million USPTO patents: every claim, every specification, the full text.

The Problem

Patent search has been broken for decades.

Professional tools cost $10,000–$50,000 per seat. They use unintuitive Boolean syntax, CPC classification codes, and hours of manual filtering. A single prior art search runs $1,600–$3,200 in attorney time.

This keeps patent intelligence locked in legal departments. R&D teams don't have access. Startups can't afford it. And while some APIs exist, none are simple enough for AI agents to use effectively.

What We Built

We indexed 100% of USPTO patents for semantic full-text search. Not just titles and abstracts but complete patent documents including claims, specifications, and figures.

Patent search is now live in the Valyu DeepSearch API. Two ways to use it:

Automatic routing. Use our standard deepsearch endpoint or webSearch tool. When your agent asks about patents, prior art, or IP we return patent results alongside web and academic sources. No configuration needed.

Dedicated patent search. Use the patentSearch tool or filter by source to search patents exclusively. Useful for prior art searches, FTO analysis, or any workflow where you only want patent data.

Multimodality — Search over technical images and diagrams within the patent(s).

Your agents can now:

• Prior Art Search — Identify existing information that could impact the patentability of your inventions in minutes, not hours
• FTO Analysis — Identify blocking patents before product launch
• Competitive Intelligence — Track competitor filings and technology strategies
• Citation Mapping — Trace forward and backward citations across patent families

Same infrastructure as all our domain search tools. Same latency. Same accuracy. Same simple integration.

Works Everywhere You Build

Vercel AI SDK

1import { patentSearch } from '@valyu/ai-sdk';
2
3tools: { patentSearch: patentSearch() }
4```
5
6**Remote MCP** — Connect Claude Desktop or any MCP client directly:
7```
8https://mcp.valyu.ai/mcp?valyuApiKey=your-key

LangChain, REST, or any HTTP client — Standard API at api.valyu.ai

Open Source: PatentAI

We built a complete patent research application to show what's possible. Conversational search. Prior art analysis. FTO screening. Citation networks. Interactive visualizations.

Fully open source. Run it locally with Ollama for unlimited private searches, or deploy with OpenAI.

Try it: patents.valyu.ai
Source: github.com/yorkeccak/patents

Get Started

Playground: Test patent search before writing code — ai-sdk.valyu.ai
API Key: platform.valyu.ai ($10 free credits)
Docs: docs.valyu.ai