7.2.1 General principles 

Subject-matter is regarded as having been made available to the public by use or in any other way if, on the relevant date, it was possible for members of the public to gain knowledge of it and there was no duty of confidentiality restricting the use or dissemination of this knowledge (see also G‑IV, 1 on written descriptions). This may, for example, be the case if an object is unconditionally sold to a member of the public, since the buyer thereby acquires unlimited possession of any knowledge which may be obtained from the object. Even where in such cases the object's specific features cannot be ascertained from an external examination, but only by further analysis, those features are nevertheless to be regarded as having been made available to the public. It does not matter whether or not particular reasons can be identified for analysing the object's composition or internal structure. These specific features only relate to the intrinsic features. Extrinsic characteristics, which are only revealed when the product is exposed to interaction with specifically chosen outside conditions, e.g. reactants or the like, in order to provide a particular effect or result or to discover potential results or capabilities, therefore point beyond the product per se as they are dependent on deliberate choices being made. Typical examples are the first or further application of a known substance or composition as a pharmaceutical product (see Art. 54(4) and Art. 54(5)) and the use of a known compound for a particular purpose, based on a new technical effect (see G 2/88). Thus, such characteristics cannot be considered as already having been made available to the public (see G 1/92). T 1833/14 is an example where the board found that a commercially available product had not been made available to the public, because the skilled person could not reproduce it without undue burden, i.e. the alleged public prior use did not amount to an enabling disclosure.

If, on the other hand, an object could be seen in a place (e.g. a factory) to which members of the public not bound to secrecy, including people with sufficient technical knowledge to ascertain the object's specific features, had access, all knowledge which an expert was able to gain from a purely external examination is to be regarded as having been made available to the public. In such cases, however, any concealed features which could be ascertained only by dismantling or destroying the object cannot be regarded as having been made available to the public.