Patent law in the United States bestows statutory rights upon a person who "invents or discovers any new and useful process...." Parties who challenge a patent may do so by denying that the process is in fact "new." This creates a lot of jargon. For today, I'll limit myself to throwing some of the legalese around, because I'm lazy. Lawyers often pursue a challenge by looking for " prior art," that is, publications that will establish that the process or device was already known before the filing. Courts in the US interpret the novelty requirement so that a claim will fail if a single publication can be produced that has already described within its " four corners ... every element of the claimed invention." This is also known as " anticipation." The " four corners" requirement means that the party asserting anticipation cannot allege that it exists but only within the combination of two or more documents: so...