Home > Determining if Your Idea is Patentable > Novel or New

Novel or New

The U.S. patent law will determine your invention is not new if it meets the following criteria:

• An identical ( or extremely similar) invention was either used by others or known in the U.S., written about in detail in a printed publication or patented in the U.S. or a foreign country, prior to when your invention was; or
  
• Your invention either was described in a printed publication or patented in the U.S. or a foreign country, on sale or in public use in the U.S. more than one year before your application for patent I the United States.

If it's determined that the same intellectual property you're trying to patent has been in any printed publication anywhere in the world, has been on sale or in public use in the United States before the date you invented it, your application for patent will be denied.

In addition, if your invention has been for sale or in public use in the U.S. or described in a printed publication anywhere more than a year prior to the date you filed your patent application in the United States, your application for patent will be denied or rejected.

It doesn’t matter if you or someone else did the public use or printed publication. If you are the one the used it publicly or described it in a printed publication, you must apply for the patent within one year of that time or you will lose any rights to a patent for this invention.

Note: Although this one-year grace period is allowed in the United States, it is not allowed in foreign countries. If any public disclosure has taken place, some countries may not allow you to file.