9/8/2010

Prior art (also known as state of the art), in most systems of patent law, constitutes 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. If an invention has been described in the prior art, a patent on that invention is not valid.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prior_Art

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Besides running the 3Yen, my day job here in high-tech Japan is a “patent reader”—an editor who checks/investigates patents for Prior Art¹, and Novelity², Utility³, and Non-obviousness⁴ as well as obvious engrish mistakes and typos.