@pipeworx/epo-publication-server

As-published European patent documents — publication dates, per-date listings with titles and applicants, and full document text (biblio, abstract, claims, description) for granted patents and directly-filed applications. Keyless.

Part of Pipeworx — an MCP gateway connecting AI agents to 1837+ live data sources. This is an independent, unofficial integration — not affiliated with, endorsed by, or published by the upstream provider.

Tools

• eps_publication_dates(year?, from?, to?, limit?) — EPO publication dates (weekly, almost always Thursdays, back to 1978) with a real per-date document count.

• eps_list_publications(date, kind?, limit?) — every EP publication issued on one date, with kind code, title and applicant(s); reports the true total before any filtering.

• eps_get_document(number, kind?, part?) — one publication's bibliographic data, abstract, claims or description text, as published.

Related MCP server: patentmcp

Auth

Keyless. No account, no registration.

EPO states a fair-use cap of 5 GB per rolling 7-day window per calling IP, confirmed live via the x-quotaperweek-remaining/x-quotaperweek-used response headers. General EPO site terms apply; no EPS-specific redistribution restriction was found.

Data sources

• European Patent Office (EPO), European Publication Server — the as-published XML/HTML of every EP patent application and granted European patent.

Notes for the next person

• The list-by-date trap: asking for a date that is not a real EPO publication date (wrong day of week, a future date, a typo) answers HTTP 200 with a tiny HTML shell and zero entries — not a 404, not an error. EPO has never actually had a genuinely empty publication date in 2,400+ weeks of history, so eps_list_publications treats zero parsed entries as a loud failure rather than a silent empty list. Always get a real date from eps_publication_dates first.

• Most application (A-kind) publications carry NO claims/description text. The large majority of EP applications enter via the PCT route, and EPO republishes only the bibliographic (SDOBI) record for those — the full specification was already published as the WIPO (WO) pamphlet, so EPO does not retype it. Full claims/description/drawings text is reliably present for granted (B-kind) patents and for directly-filed (non-PCT) applications. eps_get_document reports which case it hit (and names the referenced WO publication when it's a PCT case) rather than returning an empty part silently.

• Document ids aren't just the publication number + kind. The REST path segment is a longer id like EP4819826NWA1 — the publication number, an internal marker (NW for the overwhelming majority of documents, W1 for a minority), and the kind code. eps_list_publications returns these ids directly; eps_get_document also accepts a bare number + kind and tries the common id forms in order.

• A made-up document id does not 404 — it 500s with a small JSON body ({"code":9000,"message":"Unhandled internal server error."}). This is actually easy to work with: eps_get_document tries its candidate ids and reports found:false with the upstream status once all of them fail.

• What this adds over mcps/epo-ops (EPO Open Patent Services, OAuth2): the as-published document text itself, keyless. epo-ops keeps INPADOC worldwide legal status and CQL search across DOCDB (100+ patent offices); this pack only ever sees EP publications.

Quick Start

Add to your MCP client (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf, etc.):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "epo-publication-server": {
      "url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/epo-publication-server/mcp"
    }
  }
}

What this endpoint actually serves

tools/list at https://gateway.pipeworx.io/epo-publication-server/mcp returns the tools in the table above plus the shared Pipeworx meta-tools — ask_pipeworx, discover_tools, search_within, remember/recall and the rest of the gateway-wide set. So the tool count you see is larger than this table: a single-pack endpoint currently lists roughly 30 shared tools alongside the pack's own. The connection's initialize response states its exact scope, and is the authoritative answer for a given day.

This is deliberate, not multiplexing by accident. The meta-tools are what let a scoped connection answer a question this pack does not cover — via ask_pipeworx, which routes across the whole catalog — without you adding a second MCP server. There is currently no way to mount a pack endpoint without them; if the extra schemas cost you more context than the routing is worth, connect to the full gateway once rather than to several pack endpoints.

Or connect to the full Pipeworx gateway to get every pack's tools listed directly, instead of just this one's:

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

Both URLs reach the same gateway and the same 1837+ data sources. The only difference is which pack's tools are listed directly; ask_pipeworx reaches all of them from either one.

No MCP client? Call it over HTTP

curl -X POST https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/eps_publication_dates \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"year":"2026","limit":5}'

No account needed for the first calls. Inspect any tool: GET https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/eps_publication_dates. Find one: POST https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/search_packs with {"query":"..."}.

Standalone (no gateway account)

This package also runs as a local stdio MCP server — no Pipeworx account, no gateway round-trip:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "epo-publication-server": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@pipeworx/mcp-epo-publication-server"]
    }
  }
}

Or run it directly to confirm it starts:

npx -y @pipeworx/mcp-epo-publication-server

It speaks MCP over stdin/stdout and answers initialize/tools/list/tools/call for only this pack's tools — none of the shared meta-tools the gateway connection above adds. Same source, same tools, no ask_pipeworx routing.

Using with ask_pipeworx

Instead of calling tools directly, you can ask questions in plain English — this works on the pack endpoint above as well as on the full gateway:

ask_pipeworx({ question: "your question about Epo Publication Server data" })

The gateway picks the right tool and fills the arguments automatically.

More

• Docs and guides

• pipeworx.io

License

MIT