Checklist · Intellectual Property — Patents, Trade Marks, Copyright, Designs
Prior-art table for a standard patent
Table of prior art against the standard-patent requirements in section 18(1). It does not say the invention is patentable, and it is not a filing at the office.
- Kind
- Checklist. Steps or checks to work through and tick off.
- Where it applies
- Commonwealth
- AI use
- Yellow You and the tool draft together, with you directing. You check every statement you rely on.
- Law stated as at
- 22 October 2026
- Status
- Maintained. Checked on 22 October 2026 against the authority it cites, for Commonwealth.
- Version
- 1
- Source
- Written for this library
When to use it
Use when sorting search results or an inventor's disclosure into a prior-art table before examination, a response, or a freedom-to-operate review.
Used for these tasks
- Build a prior-art hit table for novelty, inventive step or non-obviousness
- Prepare a citation list of material prior art for disclosure to the office
Each task page says how far AI may help with the task and what the lawyer must review.
How AI may be used
The tool enters citations, dates and the claim numbers the lawyer nominates, and the lawyer decides novelty, inventive step and the other section 18(1) matters.
AI may
- List citations with dates from the search report or disclosure the lawyer supplies.
- Repeat a claim in the lawyer's words only where the lawyer has already written that claim.
AI must not
- Do not state that the invention is a patentable invention, is novel, or involves an inventive step.
- Do not draft a specification, claim or response to an examination report.
- Do not treat section 18(1A) as the test unless the lawyer is dealing with an innovation patent.
The lawyer checks
- Section 18(1) is subject to subsection (2). Human beings, and the biological processes for their generation, are not patentable inventions.
- The note to section 18 points to sections 7 and 9. Those sections were not set out in this table.
- Decide separately what, if anything, must be given to IP Australia. This table does not record a disclosure duty.
Method: how the Green, Yellow and Red levels are decided. This is guidance for planning, not legal advice.
Read the full text
The full text is available after you log in. It is free. When you log in you can:
- read the whole precedent, with its drafting notes beside it;
- copy it, or download it as a Word file or Markdown;
- add it to your firm’s knowledge base, so colleagues can find it;
- let the AI tools you connect read it from that knowledge base.
The summary, the law it rests on and the AI-use guidance above stay public. Privacy.
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