prior art

English

Noun

prior art (uncountable)

1. (patent law) In most systems of patent law, 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, and to which the patent application is compared to determine if it in fact describes a new invention.
   • 2022, Craig Allen Nard, The Law of Patents‎^[1], Aspen Publishing, →ISBN:

     The significance of this language in section 102(e)(2) is that a PCT application can serve as prior art even though the applicant never files in the United States.

Synonyms

• state of the art

Translations

information that has been made available to the public — see also state of the art

• Finnish: tekniikan taso (the level of knowledge that was public prior to the patent)
• German: Stand der Technik m