Prior art

All information that has been made available to the public in any form before a given date that might be relevant to a patent’s claims of originality.

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 obscure little known publication may have disclosed the claimed invention.