Nothing new in summer

The novelty of an invention

First of all, there is the so-called novelty value of an invention. The German Patent Law, art. 1, paragraph 1, states: "Patents are granted for inventions in all fields of technology, provided they are new, are based on an inventive step and are commercially applicable". But when is a patent considered new? The Patent Act states that an invention is considered new if it "... does not belong to the state of the art", i. e. in turn, the inventor must know the state of the art very well. This is the only way he can judge whether his invention has any chance of being registered as a patent.

One type of patent search is the prior art search. If, for example, it turns out that the inventor's idea has long been known among experts, then the further development of the product will be discontinued. A qualified search for the state of the art protects the inventor from unnecessary expenditure and from the disappointing realization that he has literally reinvented the wheel.

However, patent examiners at patent offices do not rely solely on the patent applicant's statement that his invention is new. They themselves examine the novelty content of a registered invention and search for literature that is harmful to novelty. At the end of their searches, the so-called test report with the condensed results of the prior art search is available. To write their report they also use professional information services such as STN. They not only search patent documents but also include conference reports, textbooks, scientific journal articles, videos and exhibition posters in their search. And sometimes they also find information in totally unusual sources.

The talented Mr. Duck

Just as in the notorious case of a Dutch patent examiner who found a novelty-damaging opposition to a submitted invention in a comic strip with Donald Duck.

The story behind this begins on September 14, 1964. In the port of Kuwait, a cargo ship loaded with 5000 sheep sinks. The insurance company fears an enormous insurance loss, not least because the corpses of the dead animals are threatening to contaminate the port water. The insurance company entrusts Karl Kroyer, a Danish citizen, with solving the problem of salvage quickly and economically. And Mr Kroyer has come up with an elegant yet inexpensive technical solution. It allows air-filled polystyrene balls with a diameter between 5 and 16 mm to be pumped into the interior of the sunken ship via a hose. The balls dislodge the water in the sunken ship and, through their air filling, cause the ship to drift to the water surface. Allegedly, 27 million balls were needed for the entire recovery of the ship.