Novelty

Novelty, in patent law, implies that the Invention is not included in the State of the Art.

French patent law adopts a so-called "absolute" concept of novelty, which means, on the one hand, retaining a state of the art that is as extensive as possible, and, on the other, considering that the invention must be found in its entirety and in a single prior art of certain character with the elements that constitute it, in the same form, with the same arrangement and the same operation with a view to achieving the same technical result.

In the context of designs, novelty means that no identical design has been disclosed previously.