What is Prior Art

As we will learn shortly, not all public information is available for purposes of determining whether an invention is worthy of a patent. For example, some information may be considered in the examination of a patent application by one party but not another party, depending on who made the prior public disclosure. The types of public information that qualify for determining whether an invention is worthy of a 

The Chemist s Companion Guide to Patent Law, by Chris P. Miller and Mark J. Evans Copyright 2010 John Wiley Sons, Inc. 

The categories of prior art have been defined collectively under the aegis of 35 U.S.C. 102 and are reproduced here. Taken in sum, the seven sections of 102 define 

102 Conditions for patentability novelty and loss of right to patent. 

Please note the keyword unless in the first sentence of 102. This means that during examination of the patent at the USPTO, it will be the responsibility of the examiner to provide a basis for rejection of the patent application. If the patent examiner cannot affirmatively reject a claim in the patent application, then that claim must be allowed. To do this, the patent examiner will rely on the best available art when making a rejection, meaning the examiner is instructed to avoid making rejections that are cumulative in nature. A cumulative rejection is one that merely stands on the same grounds as one or more other rejections. In the case in which the strongest references 

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