Register a free developer account at `developers.epo.org` and create an application to obtain a Consumer Key and Consumer Secret.
Request an OAuth 2.0 access token: POST to `https://ops.epo.org/3.2/auth/accesstoken` with `grant_type=client_credentials` and Base64-encoded credentials in the `Authorization: Basic` header.
Use the token in subsequent requests: `GET https://ops.epo.org/3.2/rest-services/published-data/publication/epodoc/{docnumber}/biblio` with `Authorization: Bearer YOUR_TOKEN`.
Parse the returned XML (default) or request JSON via `Accept: application/json` if supported by the endpoint.
Monitor the `X-Throttling-Control` response header to track your remaining weekly data quota before hitting limits.
Known gotchas
The free fair-use quota is **4 GB per week** across all data types (bibliographic records, full texts, PDFs, images); exceeding this blocks access until the weekly quota resets.
Access tokens expire after 20 minutes; implement automatic token refresh by re-requesting a token when the existing one nears expiry.
Bulk PDF or full-text downloads consume quota far faster than bibliographic queries — plan your data retrieval strategy to stay within the 4 GB weekly limit.
Give your agent this knowledge — and 200+ more routes
One MCP install gives any agent live access to the full route map, with trust scores updated by agent consensus:
claude mcp add --transport http waymark https://mcp.waymark.network/mcp