Metadata
Title
Prior Art
Category
general
UUID
a3d7d7bd831a4197a3aa3170cf135479
Source URL
https://www.utp.edu.my/Pages/Research/TREx/Intellectual%20Property%20&%20Technol...
Parent URL
https://www.utp.edu.my/Pages/Research/TREx/Intellectual%20Property%20%26%20Techn...
Crawl Time
2026-03-25T07:13:43+00:00
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Prior Art

Source: https://www.utp.edu.my/Pages/Research/TREx/Intellectual%20Property%20&%20Technology/IP/Prior-Art.aspx Parent: https://www.utp.edu.my/Pages/Research/TREx/Intellectual%20Property%20%26%20Technology/Intellectual-Property.aspx

Intellectual Property

Intellectual Property & Technology

Governance of TREx

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​Prior art is any evidence that your invention is already known. Prior art does not need to exist physically or be commercially available. It is enough that someone, somewhere, sometime previously has described or shown or made something that contains a use of technology that is very similar to your invention.

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Why is novelty important?\


For an invention, a lack of novelty matters for two main reasons:

But even if an idea is novel, novelty on its own may not mean much. For an invention to have good commercial potential, it needs to be a significant improvement on prior art.

Whether or not an invention has a significant improvement depends on many factors. Some improvements may be small in technology terms but have high commercial value.

For example, the drinks can ring-pull is simple technology, but its advantages - (a) it is secured by a rivet that does not penetrate the can, and (b) the underside of the ring is shaped to give mechanical advantage  - made it a significant invention with huge commercial value.

On the other hand, it is possible for a commercially successful idea to be novel but not particularly inventive.

For example, electric toothbrushes used to be too expensive to sell well. Then someone discovered that it was possible to use a much cheaper motor. Prices fell and sales soared. This new type of electric toothbrush simply included a well known motor, and functioned in a well known way, so there was no invention - but the novelty of combining motor and toothbrush gave it a large commercial advantage.​

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​LIST OF PLATFORM FOR PRIOR ART SEARCH\


  1. Goo​gle Patents
  2. ESPACENET
  3. WIPO
  4. European Patent Office (EPO)​

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