During research on prior art, a search is performed for information that could call into question the novelty or level of inventiveness of an invention at the time that the patent application was submitted.

If a technology to be patented already belonged to prior art when the patent application was submitted, then this can have a decisive influence on the assessment of the patentability of the invention, even retroactively.Eine Recherche nach Stand der Technik ist gerade abseits von Online-Quellen erfolgsversprechend.

When evaluating novelty, a search is performed for documents that describe the patent-pending or already patented technology exactly.