Monday, May 19, 2014

Patentability Requirement #3: Novelty

The third requirement is where many patent filers get caught in the process of trying to protect their intellectual property. This third requirement of patentability necessitates that patent filers be able to show that their inventions are novel, meaning not only that they are new, but that they fulfill a new purpose in a new way than the prior art. In order to violate this requirement, it must be demonstrated that the new invention is almost identical to the prior art in each of its elements.

A discussion of novelty necessitates a discussion of anticipation, wherein a claim is "anticipated" if every element in the claim can be linked specifically to an element in the prior art. This standard, however, is still not a very high one because if a patent filer can demonstrate that even one of the major components of their invention differs from the prior art, they can escape the anticipatory burden. If the patent examiner has to go beyond one case of prior art to show the non-novelty of an invention, then the rejection of that invention no longer goes under the rule of novelty, but rather our next requirement, obviousness.

The reason the novelty requirement is so important though is that it prevents inventors from copying other inventions that they have heard about or seen. The requirement puts strict limits on an inventor's ability to obtain a patent if (a) that invention was described in a patent anywhere in the world, (b)
 that invention was described in any publication anywhere, or (c) if that invention was known to the general public. These requirements make it clear that novelty is something that is extremely important to the patent-filing process.

Source:
http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2012/06/02/patentability-overview-when-can-an-invention-be-patented/id=23863/

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