Procedurally Generated Prior Art: A Closer Look

When defending a patent-infringement case, attorneys primarily focus on two avenues of defense. First, they argue that the accused product does not infringe the patent's claims. For example, the claim may require a hybrid car that has a "continuously variable transmission" (a feature available on more cars every year), but the accused hybrid car has a manual transmission (a truly fun feature that is, sadly, slowly disappearing). Second, attorneys argue that the patent is invalid because someone disclosed it to the world before the alleged inventor filed for their patent. Staying with the previous example, someone already thought to combine a continuously variable transmission with a hybrid car, so you cannot patent it.