Novelty is a basic requirement of patent law. An inventor cannot obtain a patent if the invention exists in the “prior art,” a term that generally refers to knowledge and technology already in the public domain. Interestingly, an earlier-filed patent document qualifies as prior art as of its...

The patent system gives the courts discretion to tailor patentability standards flexibly across technologies to provide optimal incentives for innovation. For chemical inventions, the courts deem them unpatentable if the chemical lacks a practical, non-research-based use at the time patent...

The quest to achieve the impossible fuels creativity, spawns new fields of inquiry, illuminates old ones, and extends the frontiers of knowledge. It is difficult, however, to obtain a patent for an invention which seems impossible, incredible, or conflicts with well-established scientific...