• Nuisance prior art does not bar a patent’s issuance, but it may prolong the prosecution. The term does not apply to efforts that are not prior art at all, such as descriptions of unsuccessful attempts to reduce an invention to practice, or to writings that do not disclose real inventions or technology, such as science fiction.
nuisance prior art
Patents. Information that appears to anticipate or obviate an invention, but does not actually do so because the earlier described invention was neither reduced to practice nor adequately disclosed in any documents.