What are the requirements for patentability?
Threshold criteria must be met before an inventor is awarded exclusivity to an invention. The inventor must actually add something new and useful to the public knowledge (and observe the spirit of the patent law). To be patentable, an invention must be: within broad statutory categories of patentable subject matter (“anything under the sun made by man.”); “Novel” (not subject to a “statutory bar”); and “Not Obvious”. Under the novelty and nonobviousness sections of the law, a claimed invention is not patentable if the “prior art” fully anticipates (includes each and every element of) the invention or it would have been obvious, (to the average person working in the relevant fields) to modify or combine the “prior art” to anticipate the invention. An invention is considered novel unless specific circumstances (referred to as “statutory bars”) have occurred. The statutory bars, in effect, prevent obtaining a patent on something already owned by another or in the public domain, and preven
