Also known as: novel · patent novelty
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
3 senses
A statutory requirement that an invention not be anticipated by prior art. The invention must differ in form or function from any technology previously patented, described in a publication, in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public.
The newness of information that is generally unused or unknown and that gives its owner a competitive advantage in a business field. A rediscovered technique with marketable applications can qualify.
A statutory requirement that an invention not be anticipated by prior art. The invention must differ in form or function from any technology previously patented, described in a publication, in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public.
Nikhil Narayan files a patent application for a new filtration device. A competitor shows that an identical device was publicly sold two years earlier. The examiner rejects the application for lack of novelty because the invention was already available to the public.
Nestor Navarro invents a labor-saving bakery machine and seeks a patent. An earlier publication describes the same mechanism. The Patent Office denies the application because the invention lacks novelty under the prior-art bar.
The newness of information that is generally unused or unknown and that gives its owner a competitive advantage in a business field. A rediscovered technique with marketable applications can qualify.
Naomi Norton develops a confidential formula for a new pesticide. Local farmers had already tested an identical compound years earlier. A court finds the information is not novel and therefore receives no trade-secret protection.
1 common questions
A feature of a state-law claim that is sufficiently new or unsettled to justify a federal district court declining supplemental jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1367(c)(1).
Nicole Navarro, a State A developer, sues a State B subcontractor in federal court on a diversity contract claim. After the anchor claim is dismissed, Navarro adds direct claims against a local supplier under a brand-new State B statute that no appellate court has interpreted. The district court declines supplemental jurisdiction because the claims raise a novel issue of state law.
A feature of a state-law claim that is sufficiently new or unsettled to justify a federal district court declining supplemental jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1367(c)(1).
Each sense below has its own examples, sources, and questions.
Natasha Nielsen compiles a telephone directory and claims copyright. A rival shows the listings were copied from an existing public database. The court finds no copyright protection because the compilation lacks the originality that parallels the novelty requirement in patent law.
Rural Telephone Service Company, Inc., is a certified public utility that provides telephone service to several communities in northwest Kansas. As a condition of its monopoly franchise, state regulation requires Rural to issue an updated telephone directory annually. Rural's directory consists of white pages listing subscribers' names, towns, and telephone numbers in alphabetical order, along with yellow pages featuring classified advertisements. Feist Publications, Inc., specializes in area-wide telephone directories covering larger geographical ranges than typical local directories. Feist's 1983 directory encompasses eleven telephone service areas in fifteen counties and contains 46,878 white pages listings. To compile its directory, Feist approached each of the eleven telephone companies operating in northwest Kansas and offered to pay for the right to use their white pages listings. Of the eleven companies, only Rural refused to license its listings. Feist then copied 1,309 listings from Rural's 1982-1983 white pages after first removing several thousand outside its geographic range and verifying the remaining data through additional investigation that added street addresses to many entries. Four of the copied listings were fictitious entries that Rural had inserted to detect copying. Rural sued Feist for copyright infringement in the United States District Court for the District of Kansas. The district court granted summary judgment to Rural. The Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit affirmed in an unpublished opinion. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to review whether the copyright in Rural's directory protects the names, towns, and telephone numbers copied by Feist.
View case2 common questions
Novelty asks whether the invention is new and not anticipated by any single prior-art reference. Nonobviousness asks whether the invention would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of invention. Both must be satisfied for patentability.
Any prior patent, printed publication, public use, sale, or other public availability of the identical invention before the filing date defeats novelty under 35 U.S.C. § 102.
No. A rediscovered technique that is generally unknown and provides a competitive advantage can qualify as novel even if it was not independently conceived by the claimant.
Nova Pharmaceuticals challenges a municipal zoning denial in federal court after its diversity claim is dismissed. The challenge rests on an untested state statute governing pharmaceutical facilities. The court declines supplemental jurisdiction because the claim presents a novel issue of state law.
In 1971 Metropolitan Housing Development Corporation applied to the Village of Arlington Heights, Illinois, for rezoning of a 15-acre parcel from single-family to multiple-family classification. Using federal financial assistance under section 236 of the National Housing Act, MHDC planned to build 190 clustered townhouse units for low- and moderate-income tenants. The Village denied the rezoning request. MHDC, joined by other plaintiffs, brought suit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois alleging that the denial was racially discriminatory and violated the Fourteenth Amendment and the Fair Housing Act of 1968. Arlington Heights is a suburb of Chicago located about 26 miles northwest of the downtown Loop. Most land in the Village is zoned for detached single-family homes. The Clerics of St. Viator own an 80-acre parcel just east of the center of Arlington Heights that includes a high school, a novitiate building, and vacant land. Since 1959 all land surrounding the Viatorian property has been zoned R-3 for single-family use with relatively small minimum lot-size requirements. In 1970 MHDC entered into a 99-year lease and accompanying agreement of sale covering a 15-acre site in the southeast corner of the Viatorian property. The agreement set a bargain purchase price of $300,000 with the sale contingent upon securing zoning clearances and section 236 housing assistance. MHDC's plans for the Lincoln Green project called for 20 two-story buildings containing 190 units with a mix of one-, two-, three-, and four-bedroom configurations and a large portion of the site left open. The development did not conform to the Village zoning ordinance and required rezoning to the R-5 multiple-family classification. MHDC filed a petition for rezoning with the Village Plan Commission accompanied by supporting materials that included an affirmative marketing plan designed to assure racial integration. MHDC consulted with Village staff and incorporated every recommended change into the plans. During the spring of 1971 the Plan Commission considered the proposal at three public meetings that drew large crowds. Opponents focused on the zoning aspects. They argued that the area had always been single-family. They also argued that the buffer policy adopted in 1962 called for R-5 zoning primarily to serve as a buffer between single-family development and commercial or manufacturing districts. At the close of the third meeting the Plan Commission recommended denial. On September 28, 1971, the Village Board denied the rezoning by a 6-1 vote. In June 1972 MHDC and three Black individuals filed suit against the Village. A second nonprofit corporation and an individual of Mexican-American descent intervened. After a bench trial the District Court entered judgment for the Village in 1974. The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed in 1975. The Supreme Court granted the Village's petition for certiorari in 1975.
View case1 common questions
Under 28 U.S.C. § 1367(c)(1), a district court may decline supplemental jurisdiction when a state-law claim raises a novel or complex issue of state law that has not been interpreted by state appellate courts.
…in the District of Columbia. No cause has been shown and the present motion is for a mandamus. The delicacy of the case, the novelty of some circumstances, and the difficulty of the points require a complete exposition of the principles on which the opinion is founded. The court considered three questions: (1) Has the…