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Prior art (also known as state of the art [1] or background art [2]) is a concept in patent law used to determine the patentability of an invention, in particular whether an invention meets the novelty and the inventive step or non-obviousness criteria for patentability.
When assessing novelty, a generic disclosure (in the state of the art, i.e. for instance in a prior art document) does not normally take away the novelty of any specific example falling within that disclosure. [13] [14] On the other hand, "a specific disclosure does take away the novelty of a generic claim embracing that disclosure".
One notable example of this struggle is the positions of Justice Douglas in Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. v. Supermarket Equipment Corp. [7] in 1950, where he opined that to deserve a patent, an invention "had to serve the end of science—to push back the frontiers of chemistry, physics, and the like"; while two years prior in Funk Bros ...
[citation needed] Unlike the laws of most countries, the US patent law provides for a one-year grace period in cases of inventor's own prior disclosure. [28] Another unique feature of the US patent practice is a provisional patent application , which allows an inventor to establish a priority and gives them a year to improve on their invention ...
A defensive publication is the act of publishing a detailed description of a new invention without patenting it, so as to establish prior art and public identification as the creator/originator of an invention, although a defensive publication can also be anonymous. A defensive publication prevents others from later being able to patent the ...
The information submitted in an IDS typically includes other issued patents, published patent applications, scientific journal articles, books, magazine articles, or any other published material that is relevant to the invention disclosed in the applicant's own patent application, irrespective of the country or language in which the published material was made.
The fact that an invention is patentable or even patented does not necessarily mean that use of the invention would not also infringe another patent. The first patent in a given area might include a broad claim covering a general inventive concept if there is at that point no relevant prior art .
A patent disclosure "enables" the invention, if it allows a person of ordinary skill in the art to practice the invention without undue experimentation. Patents may fail this test if they claim more than they teach: for example, a patent that claims all light bulbs but explains only how to make a particular type of light bulb.