patent-assignee-check

name	patent-assignee-check
description	Discover all spelling variations and official assignee names for a company in patent databases. Always use this skill when the user asks to check, verify, or find assignee name variations (e.g., 'Google Inc.' vs 'Google LLC' vs 'Alphabet Inc.') to ensure comprehensive patent searches.
metadata	{"author":"sonesuke","version":"1.0.0"}
context	fork
agent	general-purpose

Patent Assignee Check

Check assignee name variations and verify the correct assignee name used in patent databases.

Purpose

Identify spelling variations and official assignee names for a given company in patent databases. This helps ensure comprehensive patent searches by capturing all name variations.

MCP Tool

Uses search_patents MCP tool provided by google-patent-cli.

Usage

Search for patents by assignee to find name variations, then use Cypher to analyze:

patent_assignee_check({
  company_name: "Toyota",
  country: "JP"
})

# Returns dataset name like "search-abc123"
# Then query with execute_cypher to find variations:
execute_cypher({
  dataset: "search-abc123",
  query: "MATCH (p:Patent) RETURN p.assignee, COUNT(*) AS count ORDER BY count DESC"
})

CRITICAL: After searching, always use execute_cypher to retrieve results. Do NOT read the output JSON file directly. The JSON file is an internal artifact — all data is available through cypher queries.

Result Retrieval Patterns

Assignee name variations with counts:

MATCH (p:Patent) RETURN p.assignee, COUNT(*) AS count ORDER BY count DESC

Assignee variations with sample titles:

MATCH (p:Patent) RETURN p.assignee, p.title, p.snippet LIMIT 20

Parameters

• company_name (string, required): Company name to check for variations
• country (string, optional): Filter by country code (JP, US, CN)
• limit (number, optional): Maximum results (default: 100)

Common Variations

Typical assignee name variations include:

• Legal form changes: Inc. → LLC, Ltd. → Co., Ltd.
• Mergers/Acquisitions: Old company names vs new parent company names
• Spelling differences: Brackets, commas, abbreviations
• Subsidiaries: Parent company vs subsidiary names

Integration with Patent Search

After identifying assignee variations, use them in patent-search:

# Search with multiple assignee variations
patent_search({
  assignee: "Google LLC",
  country: "US"
})