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Concept
Novelty (patent)
Summary
Novelty is one of the patentability requirement for a patent claim, whose purpose is to prevent issuing patents on known things, i.e. to prevent public knowledge from being taken away from the public domain.
An invention is anticipated (i.e. not new) and therefore not patentable if it was known to the public before the priority date of the patent application. Although the concept of "novelty" in patent law appears simple and self-explanatory, this view is very far from reality. Some of the most contentious questions of novelty comprise:
inventor's own prior disclosures (only a few countries provide a grace period, most notably, 1 year in the US);
new uses of known things, such as pharmaceuticals;
a broader question of (2) is inherent anticipation;
patenting things, which are newly discovered in (or isolated from) nature (see Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc.) This question overlaps with patentable subject matter.
Novelty is requirement for a patent claim to be patentable. In contrast, if an invention was known to the public before filing a patent application, or before its date of priority, if the priority of an earlier patent application is claimed, the invention is not considered new and therefore not patentable.
To assess the novelty of an invention, a search through what is called the prior art is usually performed, the term "art" referring to the relevant technical field. A prior art search is generally performed with a view to proving that the invention is "not new" or old. No search can possibly cover every single publication or use on earth, and therefore cannot prove that an invention is "new". A prior art search may for instance be performed using a keyword search of large patent databases, scientific papers and publications, and on any web search engine. However, it is impossible to guarantee the novelty of an invention, even once a patent has been granted, since some little known publication may have disclosed the claimed invention.
A patent grants an inventor a legally enforceable monopoly over their invention.
Official source
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