Article
Real-World Prior Art
by Jonathan S. Masur & Lisa Larrimore Ouellette
The most fundamental requirement of patent law is that a patented invention must be new. Given the longstanding, foundational nature of this novelty requirement, one might expect its contours to be well settled. Yet some of its most basic aspects remain unresolved. At the center of these unresolved issues lies what we term “real-world prior…