According to 102(a), what determines the novelty of an invention?

In the context of determining novelty under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a), the core principle revolves around the concept of an invention's date of conception, or more broadly, the invention date itself. Under this statute, an invention is deemed novel if it was not known or used by others in the United States before the inventor's date of invention. This means that for a patent application to be successful in claiming novelty, the applicant must demonstrate that their invention predates any prior art disclosures relevant to it.

This aligns with the principle laid out in the patent laws whereby prior art that becomes available after an inventor's date of conception does not affect the novelty of the claimed invention. Instead, novelty is primarily based on what was known prior to the invention date. In this regard, any prior art that may have existed before this date can be used to invalidate the novelty of the invention in question. Thus, the date of invention, as it pertains to the unique formation of the idea or concept of the invention, is the fundamental factor for assessing whether an invention is novel or not.