In patent law, the concept of "Prior Art" is critical in

Solution

Prior Art (also called "state of the art") comprises all information made available to the public in any form written, oral, or through use before the priority date of the invention being examined. Under Indian patent law, prior art includes: (i) prior publication any document published anywhere in the world before the priority date; (ii) prior use public use of the invention anywhere; (iii) prior knowledge knowledge available in the public domain including traditional knowledge; and (iv) prior claiming a claim in an earlier-filed patent specification covering the same invention. If an invention is found to be disclosed in prior art, it is said to be "anticipated" meaning it lacks novelty and cannot be patented. Under Section 13 of the Patents Act, 1970, the Controller conducts a prior art search to examine novelty before granting a patent. Information kept as a trade secret is generally not considered prior art, as it was not publicly available. This broad definition ensures that patents are granted only for genuinely new contributions to the sum of human knowledge.