During patent prosecution, the examiner will determine whether your claims are novel and non-obvious compared to the prior art. Prior art is a reference that was available before the priority date of your claims. The reference can be a patent application, a publication such as a journal article, or a public use or sale. When analyzing a patent application as prior art, the examiner will evaluate everything disclosed in the entire patent, including its specification, drawings, and claims.
The priority date is the filing date of the first patent application that describes your invention, which is usually a provisional application. If the examiner’s reference is a patent application, its prior art date is the date when the application was filed, even though patent applications aren’t published until 18 months after filing. Thus, there might be prior art that’s impossible to find while you’re preparing your
patent application.
As an expert on your own invention, you should have a working understanding of the state of the prior art. Before deciding to file a patent application, it would be worth your time search for additional prior art on PubMed and Google patents using queries to keywords, authors, and competing companies.
