Prior art search for code — what developers need to know
Short answer: Prior art is any public disclosure before your filing date — including patents, papers, products, and open-source repos.
Novelty (§102) fails if a single reference discloses your invention. Non-obviousness (§103) fails if an examiner combines references a skilled developer would merge. Prior art search is how you discover those references before paying filing fees.
Sources developers overlook
- GitHub repositories and package registries
- Conference papers and arXiv preprints
- Competitor product documentation and SDKs
- Your own blog posts and launch announcements (self-disclosure)
Free vs. deep search
Patent PreCheck’s free tier surfaces prior art counts plus a teaser of up to 20 neighbor titles. The Interactive Code Review expands to a 200-match deep search with overlap narrative, plus an extended deep report (up to 500 references) — closer to what you'd expect from a preliminary attorney search at a fraction of the cost.