4. What is publicly accessible information?

The law does not define who constitutes the public, nor the extent to which information is considered to be accessible to them. The answer to these questions is determined by office and court practice. As this practice has a certain stability, we can draw some general conclusions. In many cases, it is very easy to assess whether information was accessible to the public at the patent filing date, but there are always borderline cases where this determination is more difficult, even for a patent law professional.