Q&A with a patent attorney: Prior Art

Part 1: Prior Art

This themed series of articles will answer some common questions encountered in patent law. The series commences with a discussion on prior art.

What is prior art?

A simplistic definition of "prior art" is any publicly available information that exists at any time before the date on which a patent application is filed for an invention.¹ Australian law has held that information is publicly available if the material can be inspected "as of right" by the public. There is no age limit on prior art - a relic that is thousands of years old may still be considered prior art.

Prior art not only includes information made public in Australia but also information made public worldwide. For example, a book that is able to be borrowed from a library in Mongolia may be considered prior art for a later-filed Australian patent application.