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Replies to post #116432 on EP Global Communications Inc fka EPGL
02/28/17 9:59 AM
02/28/17 10:56 AM
Enabling disclosure
Another requirement for document to qualify as prior art is that it is enabling. In other words, the document must enable an average skilled person to practice the invention as claimed. A science-fiction novel might describe an invention without going into details. While this will describe the basic idea behind the invention, it does not enable the skilled person to construct the invention. For example, the famous Star Trek TV series features the so-called "transporter", by which Starfleet personnel could be "beamed down" to the surface of the planet. However, no details were ever given on how the transporter was supposed to work, or how anyone could build it. If someone today were to invent a working matter transporter that operated in exactly the same way as in Star Trek, he would still be able to obtain a patent on it. The disclosure given in the TV series would not be sufficient to destroy novelty of the features of his transporter.
That does not mean that fiction cannot be used as prior art at all. If the fiction describes the invention in sufficient detail, it counts as prior art just like a technical publication would.
See also
The "Donald Duck as prior art" case
A famous example is the case of a method to recover sunken ships by filling them with buoyant bodies fed through a tube. According to a popular story (well, among patent attorneys anyway), the patent on this method was refused because it had already been described in a prior printed publication. Which document? The 1949 Donald Duck story The Sunken Yacht (by Carl Barks), which shows Donald and the nephews raising a ship by filling it with ping pong balls shoved through a tube. To read what is and is not true about this story, see The "Donald Duck as prior art" case.
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