In intellectual property law, novelty is one of the essential criteria for an invention to be eligible for patent protection. The novelty requirement stipulates that an invention must not have been disclosed to the public before the date of filing of the patent application, whether through publication, use, or any other form of disclosure by the applicant or another party. In other words, the invention must be unique and not form part of prior knowledge or practice (known as the state of the art) in the relevant technical field.
Novelty is verified based on the state of the art, which includes all publicly available knowledge, whether in the form of patents, scientific publications, products on the market, conferences, or other sources of information. If the invention has been made public before the filing date, whether by the applicant or by a third party, it will not be considered new and therefore cannot be patented.
In summary, novelty is a fundamental requirement for an invention to be patentable: the invention must be new in relation to the body of knowledge available to the public before the filing of the application.
Regarding designs and patents in certain Offices, such as the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), there is an exception to this rule. In most countries, for designs (and in some countries for patents), there is a grace period (usually one year) during which disclosure by the applicant does not destroy novelty, provided that the design/patent application is filed within that period.