One of the interesting aspects of patents is the degree to which
countries have harmonised their laws. This stands in stark contrast
to any number of other legal issues and is very welcome for patent
practitioners (who, by the nature of their work, have to regularly
interact with foreign patent systems). It does, however, create
some interesting issues as well.
Take the issue of novelty, for instance. Novelty is one of the
three universally-accepted requirements for a valid patent
alongside inventiveness and industrial applicability, and requires
that an invention must not have been fully described in terms of
its essential features (in public at least) before the date at
which the patent application for the invention in question is
filed. Furthermore, any public disclosure anywhere in the world
may, in principle, be considered when looking at the merits of the
invention so long as it occurs before the date of filing. These
disclosures form the prior art against which
