Noun
prior art (uncountable)
(patent law) In most systems of patent law, all information that has been made available to the public in any form before a given date that might be relevant to a patent's claims of originality, and to which the patent application is compared to determine if it in fact describes a new invention.
Prior art is as effective as US soldiers in Iraq: They control the ground they stand on, and nothing more. I used to say Vietnam, but, well, you know... Richard Stallman
Our strategy in dealing with patents in Mono is the same strategy that any other software developer would take. In the event of a patent claim, we will try to find prior art to the claim of the patent. Miguel de Icaza
Publishing a protocol under the name Atom that tries to capture all of the prior art in this stage and might provide a good basis for winding down the syndication wars. Tim Bray
Often it seems the more ‘scholarship' one has, the less innovative one becomes. One can increasingly rest upon their knowledge of prior art to solve what looks like a new problem. Stephen F Bush